


Advanced Moral Relativity

by StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms



Series: Gods and Heroes [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Aglionby Tech, Lots of Murder, M/M, Murder, Pining, Ronan is Spiderman, Ronan's feelings are not to be ignored, Science?, Slow Burn, Swearing, all confusing and chaotic, but then, got out of control inc., i would like to say it improves but nah, poorly written superpowers, probably shouldn't read if you have morals, questionable sarcasm?, superheroes and vigilantes, this is fanfiction so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-02-01 07:44:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 42
Words: 154,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12700461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms/pseuds/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms
Summary: Vigilante AU. Ronan is a non-adorable Spiderman, and Adam is the entirely adorable object of his affection. Also featuring the other members of the Gangsey in powered and augmented roles. Thus, Ronan fights crime with angry flexibility and sarcasm and tries to protect Adam while hiding his identity.





	1. Love, A.K.A. murder.

The hot water stopped working while Adam was in the shower on Friday morning. He felt it start to turn cold, and reflexively thumped the wall a few times. ’Noah!’

Then he remembered that he was already behind on the heat and hot water bills and stumbled out of the shower miserably. At least he’d decided not to wash his hair.

Admittedly, that was because he was running low on shampoo (and by running low, he meant that he’d mixed in so much water by now that it probably wouldn’t have any actual cleansing effects).

Noah was sitting on the sofa by the time he’d dressed and gone into the main room of their seedy apartment. He didn’t even look up.

‘They’re legally obliged to give us hot water.’ He pointed out calmly.

Adam searched the cupboards for some remnant of cereal. Bread. Cheese. He’d gnaw on a piece of cardboard if he had to.

‘We’re legally obliged to pay for the last two months, too. And I haven’t.’ He wondered if it was a good thing that he wouldn’t be able to increase the debt for a while. Not that he was making any progress in saving money to pay it off.

‘We should invest in solar power.’ Noah noted lethargically.

Adam snorted. ‘Sure. Right after we get that widescreen plasma TV and put down carpets spun from _actual_ gold.’

His head throbbed once, a reminder that he’d been awake until past midnight working and then studying, and he blinked it away.

Noah must’ve eaten already. Adam pulled out the last of a loaf of bread and sniffed it curiously. Stale… but edible.

‘When are you getting back tonight?’ Noah was sinking into the couch. Adam didn’t know how he made that shitty ripped-up two-seater look comfortable, because it never seemed to be when Adam sat on it.

‘Late.’ He tried to summon a recollection of his shifts. ’Ten? They might keep me later.’

‘Hm.’ Noah didn’t look at him directly, but Adam sensed the unspoken reprimand. “ _You work too much_.” But not enough, as it turned out, to afford even this place.

‘I’ll get some groceries.’ Adam said, trying to sound confident. Noah didn’t answer.

 

 

 

School tended to be the easiest part of Adam’s day. It was by no means simple work - most of his classes were advanced placement and he had to keep his grades above 75% across the board to hold onto his scholarship - but there was less effort involved in listening and taking notes than being forced to interact with the people at work.

He didn’t really have friends at school. He had tolerable acquaintances, for sure. Richard Gansey III, strictly known as Gansey, was the captain of the debating team and friendly with pretty much everyone in existence. He always greeted Adam by name and asked him how his week had gone, how he was doing with their Philosophy and Chemistry material, and managed to actually make Adam feel _smart_ without being patronising.

But they weren’t friends, by a long shot.

Gansey’s real friends (who by some miracle or Gansey’s own extremely proficient planning never appeared in the same room together) were pretty much just Henry Cheng and Ronan Lynch. Cheng was also in debating and robotics with Adam, a downright genius, and altogether a pretty decent guy. Gansey and Cheng were equivocally enthusiastic about their respective fields of interest, and whenever they teamed up, their enthusiasm was only magnified.

Why Gansey was so tight with Lynch was a mystery to Adam. Lynch was so frequently truant it was difficult to understand how he was still a student. When he _was_ around he was normally in detention, or getting detention. He’d never spoken to Adam, which was one thing to be grateful for.

The only thing Cheng, Gansey and Lynch all had in common was the thing Adam didn’t have. Money.

So he kept his distance. It was always safer not being the first to make friendly overtures, anyway.

 

 

 

After school he was supposed to do a five hour shift at the supermarket, but it ended up (as usual) being closer to six.

He picked up some groceries when he was done, let Sherry the (occasionally overly-maternal) checkout lady put his stuff through (with an employee discount that was Adam’s prime motivation for working there) and carefully arranged it in his backpack. He didn’t spend as much as he’d expected to, which was always pleasing, and it was relatively quiet outside when he finally left.

The store was only six blocks from home. Noah didn’t like him walking alone so late at night, but Adam kind of enjoyed the ambience. The air was often still heavy with the scents and heat of the day, but there were fewer people about, making noise, in the way, presenting a constant risk of uninvited interaction.

Adam wasn’t a fool, though. He knew as soon as he wandered into one of the shady narrow alleys connecting the still-busy streets that tonight he’d pushed his luck too far.

There was someone up ahead of him, lounging against a fire escape ladder. And as Adam silently assessed him, he heard another person move into position a few metres behind him. There was someone else even further down the alley, hidden in shadows.

The character on the fire escape straightened up and sauntered over to stand in front of Adam, forcing him to stop, holding one strap of his backpack awkwardly.

‘Phone, cash… and the bag.’ The figure gestured, so authoritative and relaxed that Adam briefly wondered if he genuinely ought to have them.

Then he remembered that he had twenty-five dollars change in his wallet and he couldn’t afford to replace his phone, and without the groceries he’d just bought he and Noah wouldn’t have anything for lunch or dinner tomorrow (or the rest of the week), and hesitated.

The stranger shuffled closer, his gait an unnerving admixture of confidence and false friendliness. When he was within arms length of Adam - who still hadn’t moved, fear and practicality vying for eminence in his tired brain - he pulled out a narrow black rectangle and conjured a silver knife blade with a theatrical flick of his wrist.

Adam flinched, but failed to move away or muster a coherent response.

The metal touched his throat, and it felt strangely unthreatening. Cool and smooth and painless, as yet. It didn’t feel sharp. It didn’t feel dangerous.

Adam didn’t react. He wasn’t sure how to, and his body wasn’t providing the usual self-preserving instincts it normally threw up when he felt threatened. He just blinked a couple of times, as though he was faintly confused, and felt the point of the blade suddenly become evident as it dug into his skin.

‘The fuck are you waiting for?’

Someone in the background came closer, a sliver of light illuminating a dark beanie and the glint of bared teeth. Adam heard movement behind him, and thought of an Attenborough documentary he and Noah had watched where the wolves had surrounded their prey.

These men were more like hyenas. Stealing someone else’s kill.

The closest stranger, the one with the knife, set his jaw, and Adam saw a flash of dark, soulless eyes.

Then the knife flicked away and Adam felt the right hook land with no small amount of force squarely into his cheekbone. He stumbled and landed on one knee, destabilised both by the blow and the skull-jarring pain that erupted from his temple to behind his eyes.

He was on all fours, and felt a surge of unexpectedly calm relief… that at least Noah wasn’t here. At least he wasn’t going home to his father. At least he got paid into his bank account and they still had canned tuna and some frozen mashed potatoes to eat tomorrow.

Then someone kicked him in the ribs and he fell onto his side, winded and aching.

If they beat the crap out of him, he’d miss school. If he missed school, they’d try and call his dad, and if they found out he was gone… Jesus, he could lose Noah.

He was on the verge of throwing his hands up in an yielding manner towards the man looming over him, lining up another swing at his gut, when the guy suddenly pitched to the side and faceplanted onto the asphalt next to Adam like he’d been thrown down by a ghost.

A nearby associate of Adam’s attacker, already primed to join in the beating, started forward, only to be whipped backwards off his feet in a similar way. Instead of landing face first on the ground and lying prone, he was dragged upwards into the air, writhing and emitting a truly impressive array of swear words.

The third figure,some kind of weapon in hand, was edging back into shadows, twitching from side to side as though he, too, was expecting an invisible (possibly incorporeal) assailant to be responsible.

Adam was processing most of this through a haze of breathless pain, and he took the opportunity to curl up into a ball on the ground, wondering if his fate was likely to be better or worse after this unexpected plot twist.

There were a few dull thuds and some shouting and clanging, followed by a crisp, city silence (which invariably meant a constant hum of noise in the distance).

Adam uncurled enough to see that he was now, sort of, alone.

Three bodies dangled silently from a fire escape further down the alley, spinning and jostling one another gently at the ends of long white ropes. Adam swallowed a nervous noise. They weren’t moving, at least not of their own volition. Maybe they were unconscious… but… they looked pretty dead to him.

It all slotted into place.

The rumours and thrills of excitement about the new “vigilante” had mostly evaded Adam’s interest. The gossip had parted around him in school like a river around a rock. Was he a superpowered Wolverine? Or a highly trained Arrow? Was he a brilliant Tony Stark or a forthright Captain America? Was he witty like Deadpool or deadpan like Hawkeye? Did he have a shady past like Black Widow, his namesake?

Adam didn’t care, honestly.

But even he’d registered the gruesome facts. The vigilante had been humorously dubbed “The Widower” because of the spider-reminiscent webs and athletic skills (Adam hadn’t really resolved whether they were “skills” or “powers” yet), but within a few short months he’d more than earned the title. Wherever the Widower intervened, there were fatalities, and even die-hard supporters had started to feel slightly guilty, struggling to detect where the line was between “hero” and “murderer.”

He’d killed between eight and fifteen people in the last month alone, if the reports were to be believed. And he’d probably killed these guys, all while Adam had been lying on the ground trying not to cry.

Adam hadn’t sat up. He was filled with a kind of cold resignation.

It wasn’t as though he wished they were alive. It wasn’t that. It was more that he couldn’t tell if the vigilante was still here or not, and he had no desire to interact with him whatsoever.

Something nudged his shoulder none-too-gently, and a warped, robotic voice grumbled ’Are you dead?’

Adam rolled away, onto his knees, and after dragging in a deep, painful breath he raised his chin.

The city’s vigilante/villain was somehow less imposing than Adam had expected. Certainly, he was tall. And muscular. And wearing an outfit so black it seemed to suck all the light out of the space around it. But it was also a very tight outfit, and the man was also very man-like, standing casually on the ground like a man would.

He - it? - extended a hand. His odd, multiple eyed mask made Adam think irrationally that the person underneath could also have eight eyes, which would be unusual even for someone from this neighbourhood. He also felt that the mask manifested a faintly patronising expression, which probably more than anything else prompted him to take the offered hand and allow himself to be jerked to his feet.

‘ah…’ Adam felt his ribs protest as he straightened, trying to prevent his legs from wobbling embarrassingly as the masked stranger released his hand. The suit was curiously dry and textured, probably more intricate than he’d have been able to perceive even in proper light, let alone here. ‘Thank you… for… that.’

He managed to suppress a gesture to the probable corpses.

‘Anytime.’ The robotic voice intoned, and added with a sardonic flourish. ‘You will it, I kill it.’

‘I-’ Adam opened his mouth to protest that he had not, in fact, ordered an execution, and found himself staring instead. He really hadn’t wanted to get beaten up, after all. He wondered if it was illegal to leave a crime scene by just wandering off. Yeah, probably.

‘Headed home?’ The Widower asked languidly, stretching one arm and flexing his fingers experimentally. Adam adjusted his backpack, debating whether or not to bring up the phrase “stranger danger” to this maniac. He was probably just trying to dissuade Adam from going straight to the police… which was questionable, but not unhelpful.

‘Yeah…’ Adam swallowed again, testing the feel of inflamed skin scraping over his cheekbone. Damn, that was going to leave a mark. He pointed vaguely. ‘That way.’

‘I have time for a stroll.’ The creature in front of him tilted its head, charcoal and silver eyes narrowing and contorting in either suspicion or boredom or… well, pretty much potentially anything.

Adam felt a needle of resentment, and probably owing to exhaustion and maybe a concussion, failed to prevent his automatic response.

‘I don’t need to be escorted home.’ He snapped irritably, and the spider’s head tilt increased dangerously. Although he instantly realised he probably should have kept his mouth shut, that didn’t change the fact that he DIDN’T need to be walked home like a child, especially since this suited psycho had just killed off the main threat.

‘Clearly-’ Now the robotic voice was definitively derisive. ‘- you had the situation under control.’

Still at a sub-optimal level of common sense, Adam scowled. ‘What was that? I couldn’t hear you from up there on your white horse.’

The Widower drew his arm in so fast it would have been threatening… if he hadn’t immediately brandished one finger at Adam’s face like a child. ‘You’re a fucking ungrateful prick, you know that?’

Adam opened his mouth, closed it again and forced down a near-suicidally rude response, and reopened it. ‘Yes… sorry. Thanks… again. I appreciate not being dead. Really. Thank you.’

He couldn’t tell if the Widower’s still-narrowed eyes conveyed disbelief, frustration or surprise, but he placed his meagre faith in a higher power and slowly stepped around the silent vigilante.

 

 

 

Adam was almost 90% certain that the vigilante followed him home, and he didn’t know how to feel about it. First of all, he wasn’t being exactly… subtle? At least not to someone who’d already been confronted in a dark alley that night. Adam knew the guy was dangerous (anyone could be under that mask, anyone from a cop to a junkie), even though he didn’t feel personally very threatened by him, even when he’d foolishly insulted the man to his face. Adam also didn’t want Noah getting wind of any part of this, although he hadn’t formulated an adequate lie for the bruises yet.

And after he’d wandered a couple blocks over and started to feel weak and woozy from the adrenaline evaporating and fatigue suffusing his body with pain… he’d started to almost… _appreciate_ the thought that if he passed out someone would be around to notice… even if it just gave the vigilante a chance to stab Adam for being a prick.

Noah must’ve been asleep by the time he got in. He showered in tepid water and ate a few crackers before going to bed, turning over the curiously surreal events of the night until he fell asleep.

 

 

 

Noah launched himself off the sofa in the morning with a disparaging comment about the state of Adam’s face, and subsided into quiet sulking when Adam refused to explain it (having failed to create a believable lie), and then he promptly disappeared to go to the movies or meet friends or something.

Despite his brother’s passive aggressive exit, Adam appreciated the peace. The reality of last night had sunk in, leaving him slightly more skittish than he really cared to admit, even to himself.

In the harsh light of day the murder of three career criminals in a dark alley was a pretty grim, sordid matter, even to the typically analytical news program Adam preferred. He contemplated his degree of responsibility for their deaths. He contemplated the morality of his “saviour”. He contemplated whether his unease had as its source actual distress over the deaths of three people, or a lack of said distress. He wondered if he was morally corrupt, somehow, as a result of his childhood. He wondered if his father really had laid in an intractable genetic code of assholery.

Still, the Widower had saved him, so in terms of personal loyalty, his morality was kind of a side note.

He sat on the sofa with his knees pulled up to his chest until it was around time for Noah to be back, and then he moved to his bedroom to study.


	2. Walk the walk, stalk the stalk

It was just Ronan’s luck that Adam Parrish would get attacked on a Friday night.

He couldn’t tell if it was good luck or bad luck, though.

Ronan was all too aware he’d complicated things for himself. He’d seen Parrish walking into the trap from a nearby rooftop, and he’d hesitated… all because he thought Parrish would be suspicious if he swooped in straight away. Because of Ronan’s mistake, they’d been able to leave Parrish with some lasting bruises.

Because someone had punched Parrish, Ronan had lost his temper.

And because of that, he’d killed them all in front of Parrish.

He’d been predicting this event for more than a month. Out scouting for trouble one night nearly five weeks ago, Ronan had recognised the weary thoughtfulness of a figure picking his way across downtown pavements, navigating alleyways and streets without any apparent recognition of how dangerous his route was. It had been both infuriating and overwhelming. Adam Parrish, the odd man out at Aglionby Tech, the only student there besides Gansey or Cheng Ronan could ever even turn his mind to without a flood of disdain. He’d just been walking, steadily, in one direction, ignoring the obvious risk he was taking so late at night and on his own.

That first night, Ronan had watched… _followed_ Adam all the way to an apartment building, and then he’d clenched his jaw and thrown himself off a rooftop, swearing up and down that he’d forget Parrish’s stupid recklessness, that he’d forget where Parrish lived and where he worked, and he’d forget that even outside school Parrish seemed to exist more in his own world than this one.

Perhaps he’d found himself in the same area the next night, and the night after that. Perhaps over the next four weeks Ronan had been forced to accept the fact that he couldn’t - physically _could not_ \- knowingly let Parrish wander in and out of shadowy lanes and dark corners at night without someone around looking out for him. The kid was clearly an idiot. Technically this was a community service. Not that Ronan was particularly interested in adding that to his limited list of hobbies.

He easily identified the pattern of Parrish’s nightshifts from Wednesday to Saturday, which left Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays free to go searching through other parts of the city. In a way, his attention was concentrated where it was most needed. Scholarship Boy lived in one of the city’s most rugged neighbourhoods, and Ronan broke up countless assaults, muggings, scuffles and attempted thefts he’d encountered merely pacing Parrish’s course along rooftops and across building walls.

Up until now, he’d tried not to leave his usual trail of destruction. He didn’t want anyone questioning why the Widower’s attention was so heavily focused on a ten block radius around a certain Adam Parrish’s apartment block.

 

 

 

Ronan showered when he got back to the apartment, but he stayed up until dawn listening to music and thinking of the way Parrish had gripped his hand and staggered to his feet. It had been pretty easy to see him in the dark through the suit’s HUD, and Ronan pondered that this had been the closest he’d ever actually been to him. He felt sure he’d never touched him before. Even through the suit, the grip had registered and sunk into Ronan’s bones like poison.

If tackling the three-thug problem hadn’t boosted his adrenaline, Parrish sure as hell would have.

And he’d stood there and taken offence at Ronan’s suggestion, which would _never_ have been made under _any_ circumstances to _anyone else_ no matter _what_. And he’d been thick enough to throw it back in Ronan’s face - in the _Widower’s_ face - like he had absolutely no self-preservation instincts whatsoever.

As if Ronan wasn’t already sure of _that_.

He slumped against the side of his bed in the dark and cursed. Gansey would be awake soon, and he’d start digging through his notes for the millionth time, scanning news channels and websites for reports he could flag, checking blogs and forums. He’d look at Ronan’s face and conclude that he hadn’t slept well, and he’d see Ronan’s mood and conclude that he’d had nightmares, and Ronan really didn’t want to carefully evade his questioning remarks right now.

He put the suit back on and slid his window open.

Pre-dawn was cool and promising and, if Ronan were the type of flowery moron who had a favourite time of day, this would be it. He retraced his steps out of laziness, headphones under his suit driving electronic bass into his head like a sledgehammer. He got a fair distance away before he felt calm enough to turn off the music and settle onto a rooftop crowded with rusted debris.

He shouldn’t have engaged with Parrish. He should have dealt with the assholes and left him lying on the ground to take care of himself. Now he had an alter-ego who’d interacted more with Parrish than Ronan himself ever had. Not that he wanted to… not that he ever actually wanted to _speak_ to Parrish…

He didn’t want anything to do with him.

It was mostly Gansey’s fault that Ronan had even realised Parrish existed.

A scholarship kid from the rough part of town, some random who willingly chose to come to Aglionby? He never would have featured on Ronan’s radar if Gansey hadn’t come back one evening gushing about wooing Parrish for the debating team. According to Gansey, the new kid read even more than he did. He told Ronan that Parrish was already being placed into advanced classes, he was already in robotics lab with Cheng, and according to the physics professor he was “brilliantly analytical”.

Things had pretty much gone downhill from there.

Gansey’d glorified Adam Parrish so much Ronan hadn’t been able to stop himself from investigating the kid.

He had gone to robotics lab for the first time in… maybe… three weeks? Maybe five? And all he’d gotten for the effort was a glimpse of sandy-brown hair and Parrish’s lanky form hunched over a stepper motor and driver carrier.

Gansey had managed to rope Parrish into debating, citing the excellent appearance of the activity on university applications. Ronan wasn’t technically on the debating team (he was, in fact, fairly anti-debating, and incredibly anti-team), but he’d invited himself into one of their training sessions on the basis that nobody would have the balls to throw him out.

And Parrish had been there, second alternate (Gansey said this was a seniority thing, not an actual intelligence thing, and he said it guiltily, which was how Ronan knew he wasn’t just being nice). He’d been sitting on the floor studying, and for more than twenty minutes had not acknowledged a single event which occurred outside the small sphere of his focus.

Then McCarthy had exchanged several of the main players for the three alternates, taking Gansey out, leaving Henry Cheng (it was almost more than Ronan could bear, just sitting and enduring the compounded pretension in that room). Gansey had sat next to him and nodded, a silent “ _Get ready for this…_ ” and Ronan had been tempted to push him off his chair.

Adam Parrish had sat in one of the awkward plastic chairs at the front of the room with no lack of discomfort, and correctly answered fifteen of the forty practice questions McCarthy had thrown out, all of them concerning mathematics, physics and chemistry. He only hit (or more accurately, tapped) the bell when he knew the answer, and he always answered with an dispassionate air that struck Ronan as surprisingly relatable. He was, as Gansey had described him, restrained, concise, and eminently serious. Ronan would have categorised him as a complete bore immediately if… well if he hadn’t been so strangely intense.

It didn’t hurt that he was attractive, potentially, under certain light. He had bright, melancholy eyes, noticeable ( _distracting_ …) even from Ronan’s distance.

Gansey had been swapped back in again, and Ronan had left before he was forced into a genuine introduction to this thing, this entity, this creature he was pretty sure was unlawful.

Before Ronan was lost to further reminiscing, he was interrupted by the subtle crunch of boot on gravel.

‘Thought I might find you here.’

That’d be thanks to Ironbee’s fucking cameras. Ronan would have a word with him about that, or one day he’d be caught unprepared. As it was, he rapidly straightened his slouched position against a busted air conditioning unit, and tried to appear neutral.

Aegis stepped into his line of sight, and leaned on a buckled satellite dish. Like the Widower, and numerous other small time vigilantes who had cropped up over the past few years, Aegis had been nicknamed by the local media, and the title had stuck. Ronan strongly suspected that _she_ didn’t appreciate the lack of creativity.

‘You were busy last night.’ She continued, crossing her legs at the ankles.

Ronan, against his will, had grown unnaturally fond of this very strange individual. It didn’t help that he knew her civilian persona, a not-very-charming art student with more personality than her small frame should conceivably possess.

Blue Sargent, as she was more commonly known, was wearing her typical crime-fighting outfit of indigo and black-seamed leggings, ultramarine battle shirt with a pale blue tac vest strapped over it (she was like a walking bullseye, but Ronan supposed that was the point). She had a matching blue mask which covered the lower half of her face, and an indigo hood, currently folded behind her neck.

She tugged heavily modified (and pastel pink) goggles off her face and into her hair and sighed. ‘I don’t suppose today is the magical day you choose to talk to me?’

Ronan didn’t answer, and she proceeded to pull down her mask.

’T-Dub, the Veil are one death away from making you a public enemy.’

Ronan wasn’t sure when she’d decided to stop hiding her face from him. It hadn’t been long after they’d met (in vigilante terms), and he’d been certain at the time she’d seen through his disguise as quickly as he’d seen through hers.

But nothing had come of it. Blue Sargent reacted to Ronan Lynch and to the Widower in two very different ways, and Ronan had carried on trying to de-Ronan-ify his Widower persona whenever she was around, on the off chance that she wouldn’t realise they were the same person.

Her next sigh was pointedly aggravated. ‘Not everyone should be murdered for their crimes. What happens if you hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it? What about the right to a fair trial, judgement by peers, evidence? What about your own accountability? You can’t judge others and not be judged to the same standard in return.’

She slid into a defeated posture onto the ground, apparently resigned to failure. Ronan bit his tongue, wishing more than anything to observe aloud how much she sounded like Gansey.

Blue wasn’t always like that. Sure, she had some fairly steadfast moral principles, but as the vigilante status proved, she had no problems getting her hands dirty. Ronan wasn’t sure if she’d ever killed anyone, and he didn’t particularly want to know.

‘I get it. You don’t care.’ She glanced out over the lightening skyline, and blinked as the breeze tousled her hair. ‘But you don’t have to kill, because you don’t always kill, so just… quit it for a while, or something. Before the Veil considers you just another criminal.’

‘I’ll never be “just another criminal.”’ Ronan wasn’t able to contain his indignation, but fortunately the voice modulator covered him.

It wasn’t as though Blue, or rather, Aegis, hadn’t heard the Widower speak. They’d actually spoken more sincerely than Ronan was able to speak to most people, primarily because he was actively squashing down his misanthropy and sarcasm so she wouldn’t recognise him.

The first time she’d asked him who he was, he hadn’t lied. _“I can’t tell you.”_

Now every time she asked him a question he couldn’t answer, for the good of both of them, he simply didn’t reply.

In response to his outburst, Aegis snorted softly. ‘Yeah, right.’

Ronan wasn’t able to snap at her, or level a glare from behind his mask, so he settled for looking east and sniffing distastefully.

His thoughts drifted, from Aegis to Blue, to Blue and Gansey, obnoxiously comfortable in each other’s company, to the point where the Widower had more than once contemplated “dealing with” her himself. There had been a time, before the Widower, before Blue, and before Cheng, and then, he supposed, before Parrish, when Gansey had pretty much belonged to Ronan. And that had been a good time.

His thoughts, predictably, turned to Parrish.

 

 

 

Parrish, in his apparently infinite wisdom, still went to work the night after he’d been attacked.

Ronan didn’t know him too well, but he wasn’t surprised. Parrish even had a spreading purple-green bruise over practically a quarter of his face, but he still put on that embarrassingly red uniform shirt and marched his sorry ass into work.

Ronan was also not particularly shocked to find himself perched on a fire escape railing, watching Parrish leave work even later than usual, shrugging on a jacket. He wasn’t carrying his backpack tonight, but that probably didn’t make him any less of a target.

Ronan wondered briefly if Aegis was going to follow through on her threat from earlier. Before she’d abandoned him to sulk on his rooftop, Blue had hesitated, one foot over the boundary wall.

‘We’ll be watching, W.’ (She didn’t like the name Widower, either. She called it “cheesy”, both as Aegis to Widower and as Blue to Ronan.) ‘Be careful.’

It wasn’t as though Ironbee wasn’t already watching. Now _he_ , Ronan knew, _had_ to be aware of Ronan’s real identity. His tracking systems, audiovisual tech, and database access made it a surefire bet that he’d recognised Ronan straight away. Frustratingly, he was also the most likely to trace Ronan’s patterns in Parrish’s neighbourhood, and he was no slouch in the logical deduction department, either. Ronan merely assumed he didn’t care.

Ironbee was way more Chaotic Neutral than Aegis. And, for that, at the very least, he earned a little respect. And there was the tech, obviously…

Ronan had been following Parrish for nearly ten minutes when he suddenly ground to a halt.

Of course… there was still a police perimeter around the incident area. There were ways around, obviously, but Parrish seemed to be stuck.

Ronan - the Widower, that is - shouldn’t be here.

But he also couldn’t leave Parrish, standing in the middle of the pavement looking at a blocked up alleyway like a lemming.

He crouched, hesitated, and then climbed down the wall quietly, landing a few feet behind Parrish. Someone coming in the other direction caught sight of him, made an aborted gesture of warning, and scuttled across to the other side of the road.

Parrish didn’t seem to notice.

‘What’s the problem?’ Ronan mocked, pleased to see Parrish startle. ‘Still rerouting?’

Parrish looked over his shoulder slowly before he turned around. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t run, which was moderately unusual.

‘Getting back might be quicker if you actually move.’

Parrish stared at him and tipped his head faintly. ‘I didn’t go to the police.’

Ronan paused, processing this statement. First of all, he didn’t care. Additionally, why _would_ he care?

People were staring. They kept walking, giving the Widower and his new friend/victim plenty of space, but Ronan could sense the rising tension. He needed to make Parrish move.

‘Good for you.’ Ronan shrugged, feeling the reassuring hiss of his suit adjusting. He thought he could hear sirens, but in the city, that meant nothing.

Parrish nodded slowly, looking directly at him like he could _really_ see him, which was unnerving. ‘So… Thanks again.’ There was a question hanging in his intonation. _Why are you here? What do you want from me?_ Ronan didn’t have a sane answer.

He shrugged once more. Parrish looked past his shoulder at something, and then fixed his gaze back on Ronan’s mask. ‘We should go.’

The word “we” made heat crawl up Ronan’s spine. He glanced up, glanced at Parrish, glanced away. In the efforts of ensuring that Parrish wouldn’t look like an accomplice, without warning he flicked a web up towards a crane tower, darted forwards and threw Parrish over his shoulder.

It was a pain compensating for Parrish’s weight as he leapt upwards. Of marginal assistance was the fact that Parrish instinctively dug his fingers into the back of Ronan’s suit and curled up instead of struggling. Ronan had a moment to wonder if his coping mechanism was always “path of least resistance” and then his web shooter jerked him off centre, sending the two of them in a slow, majestic arc under the jib. His other arm was occupied pinning Parrish to his shoulder, so it seemed to be time for some rapid manoeuvre practice.

He released Parrish, felt him slip sideways, and fired another web into the ether, watching it catch the rough corner of some high rise apartment block in the distance. He tugged loose of the last web and spun in midair to catch Parrish around the waist as he dropped like a rag doll.

The ground swooped up to meet them, but Ronan never misjudged his angles, and they swung lazily in a huge semi-circle, regaining enough height to graze the top of some of the lower buildings. He wondered if Parrish’s little physics brain was going nuts about this.

They reached the far point of the swing and Ronan loosed the web, landing rather heavily on a concrete surface (the roof of some nightclub, or maybe an overcooked bar). Parrish’s feet skittered across the ground, avoiding most of the impact, and when Ronan let go of him he simply dropped onto his side and lay there, prone, like one of those fainting goats everyone had been obsessed with three years ago.

Ronan stretched and padded across to climb the nearest ventilation duct, taking the opportunity while Parrish was motionless to gain the high ground.

‘That wasn’t exactly what I meant.’ Parrish admitted flatly, voice slightly muffled.

‘Oh. Ohhhh…’ Ronan hoped the modulator wasn’t reducing the quality of his sarcasm. ‘Wow. You should be more specific.’

Parrish sat up gingerly, and peered around, and Ronan sharply remembered that his eyesight was considerably heightened by both his power and his suit, which meant that Parrish, for the last one or two minutes, had pretty much been hurtling through swirling darkness.

‘Is there… something I can help you with?’ Parrish asked, and for a moment he sounded almost uncertain. Then he rubbed his eyes with one hand and his expression resumed its normal unimpressed weariness.

Ronan blinked slowly and considered his next move. He _should_ take Parrish straight home. He had, basically, just abducted him off the street, and if anything was likely to piss off the Veil, snatching civilians was bound to be it.

How satisfying.

Imagining, for a moment, that Aegis was somewhere watching him, Ronan settled into a crouch on the duct, and focused, anticipating the shifting of the mask-eyes as he sharpened his gaze. Parrish watched him carefully, but with a slight squint which gave away his own poor vision.

‘Most people, when they get fucked up, don’t go back to the same place the next night.’ Ronan commented dryly. ‘Not exactly a quick study, are you?’

Parrish frowned. ‘I didn’t get fucked up.’ He shuffled over until his back was against the brick and mortar border of the roof. ‘And you killed them.’

‘Have you looked in a mirror today, Rocky?’ He did have a point. Ronan _had_ killed them. And anyone else in the area would hopefully pause for thought before attempting anything else when the Widower could be around.

There was a pause. Ronan could hear Parrish breathing. He seemed remarkably calm, or maybe just exhausted.

‘Can I ask you a question?’ Parrish’s tone was steady, if a little soft.

‘You can ask.’ Ronan replied coolly. His suit felt tight around his ribcage. He wondered if he needed to check it for damage again.

‘Is it genetic?’

Ronan leaned back, gripped the smooth edges of the duct behind him, and gradually lifted his legs and torso into the air until he was as straight as a rod. He should have expected that. Parrish didn’t do ordinary. He wouldn’t ask “Who are you?” and “Why are you doing this?” or “How could you kill them?” or “Why me?”

No. Parrish was, predictably, interested in the science.

If it counted as science.

Ronan used the time it took to perform his handstand to try and think this through.

The silence stretched out until Parrish cleared his throat. ‘Do you age?’

Now _that_ was an odd question. Ronan folded his legs down until his feet were on the metal, pulled up his torso, and flipped backwards onto the ground directly in front of Parrish. He even managed to perfect a twist in midair that allowed him to land facing his… captive??? This wasn’t exactly what Ronan had planned for his night.

Parrish didn’t flinch, but he did lift his chin to watch Ronan’s face- or rather, his expressionless head-area.

Ronan knew he should keep his mouth shut, but it was impossible under the scrutiny of those brilliant eyes. He sank onto the ground, folding his legs underneath himself so he and Parrish were roughly eye-to-eye. ‘I age.’

‘At an irregular speed?’ Parrish continued. His attention was hypnotising. Ronan felt trapped, felt vulnerable, felt… breathless.

‘Normally.’ He corrected bluntly.

‘So you’re young?’ Parrish leaned forward, fascination clearly overruling common sense. ‘Under twenty-five?’

Ronan wasn’t sure what Parrish was driving at, but he knew he’d risked a lot opening this interaction.

He nodded tightly and held his tongue.

‘Someone like you existed before.’ Parrish murmured, neither aggressive nor entirely docile. ‘I looked it up.’

Ronan stood up abruptly. _Time to go_. This _was_ a mistake.

’Is it biochemical?’ Parrish’s voice shook. Maybe Ronan wasn’t hiding his anger as well as he thought. ‘Is it genetic? Radiation? Are there more like-?’

 

He didn’t speak to Parrish again.


	3. Don't drink and web, kids...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Bad fight-writing and terrible one-liners.   
> Thank you to everyone who has read, left kudos and left comments! Means so much to me! There may be a delay in posting the next couple of chapters, I'm experiencing some internet difficulties.

Adam had managed to piss off one of the most dangerous people in the city. Twice.

He knew he’d hit a nerve, bringing up that old story. He’d found it only after extensive digging in the online news archives, and he’d also found another job. All of the original paper editions of the local Weekend Courier were being formatted and scanned for online storage, and they’d requested manpower. He agreed to work ten hour shifts over the holidays, in case Dad didn’t get them farm work outside the city.

The story cropped up in one of the already scanned issues, examples of what the resulting archive would look like. Nearly twenty years ago, during another spate of vigilante popularity, some creature in a mask had appeared. The suit had been different - probably just traditional black cargoes and a bulletproof vest over a battle-shirt - but the mask… multiple eyes, the most high-tech part of the outfit. And the activity pattern had been the same. No webs or weblike substances were reported, in fact, the original vigilante had preferred a more hands on combat style. He (?) had never been associated with a spider, but he’d been strong and fast and unparalleled in reflexes.

And then he’d disappeared.

The article seemed satisfied with the common rumour that the vigilante had been recruited for overseas combat, and lamented the loss to the community,

Adam wasn’t.

 _His_ Widower was lean and impulsive and sarcastic, and Adam couldn’t equate the two. His was obviously too young to be the original, which meant there had been more than one, and that the explanation behind that remained to be discovered.

It shouldn’t have mattered. Adam had homework to do and lab reports to complete and essays to write, as well as two jobs to remember and… and Noah to look after.

He wondered, in a detached way, when his father was coming back.

But the Widower had intervened in his life twice now, and that felt weirdly personal. His whole manner had felt weirdly personal, and Adam was aware that he wasn’t extremely familiar with the conduct of regular individuals, but that had _not_ been it.

Was he inadvertently stepping into the Widower’s path?

What was he missing?

 

 

 

_Goddamn Parrish. Goddamn Parrish and his goddamn curiosity._

_Damn Ronan’s own weakness._

 

 

 

Gansey invited Adam to a study session in the library on Tuesday evening, comprising of most of the debating team and several students Adam recognised from philosophy class who generally just heckled with epistemological questions about whatever topic matter was under discussion.

Eventually the session degenerated into spotfire arguments between various members, and Adam ended up wedged between Henry and Gansey as they argued over the ethics of restricting AI autonomic development by writing in self-limiting code.

He found the conversation entirely fascinating. His knowledge of code had been purely theoretical before he’d obtained the scholarship and even now his progress was unpleasantly slow. Relative to Henry’s coding genius, Adam was a veritable potato.

‘The biological mind-’ Gansey was insisting. ‘-has by necessity numerous limitations, in storage, access… _processing_. Create a being without those, and it logically must be a superior analytical mind.’

Henry smiled mildly in response. ‘An AI would also by necessity have limitations-’

‘-not with a self-programming capacity-’

‘But nevertheless, limitations must exist by virtue of the lack of intuition, of hereditary traits, of _instinct!_ Who is to say that an AI would experience self-preservation instincts as we comprehend them?’

‘Design would dictate that self-defence would be programmed -’

‘Defence, yes, but does that mean self-preservation? How would the AI come to equate the aggression of the virus or hacker with the established normality of the creator’s off switch?’

Adam sat quietly and listened as the conversation curved and traversed the vagaries of ethics and programming, until finally, Henry changed tack.

‘Take this mysterious… what is it… Widowman- individual- we have around these days.’ He motioned at the ceiling. Adam didn’t react, but it took all of his self-control.

Gansey sat forward, immediately even more absorbed than he’d been for the past two hours. ‘Are you suggesting-’

‘Not at all.’ Henry brushed the idea away with a flourish. ‘I’m merely suggesting that the need for vigilantes, who are not, themselves, infallible, would be eradicated given a system of law enforcement which was entirely infallible. An AI could approach the law enforcement and legal systems with impartial regard to the law.’

‘Impartiality does not ensure efficacy.’ Gansey protested, and Adam caught his shining eyes and wondered what he was thinking, exactly. ‘The Widower is definitive evidence of that. You’re suggesting that he is a murderer because he is emotionally flawed, but I must counter-posit that he is a murderer _because_ he lacks empathy.’

Adam winced, and unfortunately Gansey’s close proximity ensured that he couldn’t disguise it.

‘Ah, I’m so sorry. That’s just a small interest of mine-’ (Henry Cheng snorted at the word “ _small_ ”) ‘I’ve been trying to determine the possible motives of the Widower since his activities became so… infamous.’

Adam tried to shrug it off and struggled. ‘No problem… I just… I don’t know.’

‘You disagree?’ Cheng probed, dark eyes as intent as Gansey’s light ones.

‘I…’ Adam didn’t know. He owed the Widower, no matter how strange and deadly he was, and he felt almost uncomfortable hearing Gansey’s opinion of him as an unfeeling sociopath. ‘It’s hard for me to be objective.’

‘You’ve encountered him.’ Henry assessed efficiently, nothing in his tone suggesting positive or negative judgement. ‘Under hostile circumstances, I presume?’ He inclined his head very slightly towards the bruise under Adam’s eye.

 _Once_ , Adam thought, but he just nodded. ‘He intervened…’ He gestured vaguely.

Gansey sat back in his seat so heavily and thoughtfully Adam thought he might have endangered their casual acquaintance, but when he glanced over Gansey looked enraptured.

‘You saw him? In the flesh? In the SUIT? What was it like? What was he like? I judge that only about 15% of his victims are actually seriously harmed, but that’s an estimate. How did he determine the situation? Was a crime committed before or after he intervened?’

Henry coughed gently, and Gansey took a quick breath. ‘This is marvellous. I’ve interviewed numerous witnesses to vigilante justice, but never someone as astute as yourself.’

Adam wondered if he could melt into his seat and disappear.

 

 

 

Gansey insisted on driving him home, and Adam gradually tried to dissect his own feelings on the matter during Gansey’s interrogation. Obviously, he was duly grateful that the vigilante had fished his ass out of the fire, but now Adam risked acquiring a reputation associated with that he couldn’t help but feel mildly uneasy. It wasn’t enough to make him resent the rescue, but he felt the need to be wary.

In any case, it was more than a simple act of subjective justice. The fact that the man… creature… whatever he was- the fact that he had even noticed that Adam was in trouble, and that Adam had walked the same street the next night, and that he’d stopped, momentarily thrown by the break in routine and the memories of the previous night… that had to _mean_ something. Adam just didn’t know what. Maybe it meant that the vigilante wasn’t a sociopath.

So he fielded Gansey’s questions (some of them exceedingly odd) about the first encounter, pretending that the Widower had sent him packing before he’d concluded “business” with the attackers. Gansey also skirted around the issue, apparently unwilling to mention that men had turned up dead that very night, probably in case Adam was still unaware.

Before asking in detail, Gansey clarified his interest.

‘I assure you, I’m not trying to compromise your loyalty. I have no interest in catching him, simply attempting to determine his intentions. Don’t worry, I leave justice to the better qualified.’

Adam wasn’t sure anyone was better qualified to analyse justice and morality than Gansey was, being so prodigiously absorbed in philosophical reflection.

Gansey still had questions when he pulled up in the street outside Adam’s building, so they talked in the car for a while longer.

‘The Widower isn’t really my main concern.’ Gansey admitted slightly sheepishly. ‘There are others- Other powered individuals, other skilled individuals.’ He turned in the driver’s seat conspiratorially and Adam felt a flush of pride that Gansey was entrusting _him_ with something so clearly personal.

‘When I was younger… ten, in fact… there was an incident.’ His gaze darkened. ‘At a political function my family attended in Washington.’

Distant memories of Adam’s ten-year-old self watching the news in the apartment dripped cold recognition down his spine, but he didn’t interrupt.

‘There was a question of powered individuals under discussion-’ Gansey gestured with grim dismissiveness. ‘- and at the time it was all very new and most people… especially people in power… were panicking. Some of the suggestions were, without a doubt, uncivilised. Barbaric. Inhuman.’

‘Many of those in attendance made a show of producing a vastly unnecessary retinue of security personnel and additional protocol.’

Adam remembered one particular news article quite vividly. The words “abomination” and “slaughter” had been used, along with equally memorable pictures. He wasn’t sure Gansey’s phrase “vastly unnecessary” was technically an accurate description.

‘They invited the most prominent powered individual of the time as a guest speaker. Chimera. You remember? A few people called him a hero, but most others insisted he was a portent of our own destruction.’

Gansey lifted his hands awkwardly and put them on the steering wheel, twisting the leather subconsciously.

‘I’m sure you know the story. But it didn’t happen how they say it did. He was being verbally abused from practically every side, and he had bodyguards, secret service… _soldiers_ eyeing him off. He was so _young_ , I think. I remember him being so incredibly young. And when he lost his temper - which he _did_ \- everyone with a gun in a quarter-mile radius tried to put him down.’

Gansey paused, folding one arm to tap his lip with his thumb. Adam felt slightly adjacent to the conversation, like Gansey was talking to his memories, and Adam only happened to be next to him in the car.

‘And… well, you know. It was horrifying. That… _thing_ … was unstoppable.’

_Thing?_

‘But when the shooting stopped, and it came for us…’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘It was strange, Adam. People were running, and screaming, and it was chaos. But this thing was standing in front of me, and I could have sworn… something fought its way back out of it, and that was the real Chimera. Or not… or not the _Chimera_ , but a person inside it. Like he was trapped, and this other thing was just blind rage, and when it was about to kill me, he fought it… and he won.’

 

 

 

Ronan was at home when Gansey got back. He was pleased with his decision to share his obsession (and the ultimate source of it) with Adam Parrish, and he chose not to spoil his mood by commenting on the bottle of bourbon Ronan had on the floor by his head.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Ronan growled, spread out loosely across the entire sofa.

‘How is that a legitimate question for me, but never for you?’ Gansey replied, pulling the fridge open.

‘Because I know how to punch people.’ Ronan answered mockingly.

‘Ha.’ Gansey climbed onto the back of the sofa and rested his feet on the cushions in front of Ronan’s stomach. ‘Did Blue come by?’ He’d messaged her that he was studying, but sometimes she dropped over to hang out anyway.

‘No.’ Ronan pinched his leg viciously. ‘Where were you?’

Gansey kicked him lightly and ripped open a bag of chips. ‘Studying for debating. And I took Adam home.’

Ronan, momentarily, didn’t respond, but Gansey knew what was coming.

Eventually he released a slow, insulting whistle. ‘Careful, Cheng’ll get jealous.’

Gansey considered kicking him again and decided against it. He didn’t know how much Ronan had already had to drink. ‘He met the Widower, you know.’

There was a second’s hesitation, then Ronan snorted rather loudly. ‘He’s probably lying.’

‘He’s not.’ Gansey frowned. ‘He’s got a bruise the size of a grapefruit where some idiot hit him.’

‘Huh.’ Ronan swung an arm out, searching for the liquor.

‘I just figured he… well… That he…’ Gansey trailed off, staring vacantly out the window. Ronan scowled.

‘So the vigilante attacked Parrish?’ He prompted bluntly, and Gansey looked down at him.

‘No… _no_. Helped him. Intervened.’ Ronan took a swig of straight bourbon as Gansey continued thoughtfully. ‘I think he killed people, but I don’t know if Adam knows that. It’s horrific, obviously, but it’s also _Parrish_. I don’t know whether I should send the lunatic a fruit basket or a restraining order.’

Ronan went silent again, which suggested that he was no longer interested. Gansey wanted to call Blue and tell her about this development… He’d ask her not to try and contact Adam, though, because clearly Parrish didn’t want to be involved with the police or pursuing Widower. Gansey’s lingering impression was that Adam, understandably, didn’t want to be involved in the whole vigilante scene. He’d answered Gansey’s questions very carefully… although Adam didn’t really do anything without precision.

‘Maybe we should ask the Veil to keep an eye on him?’ Gansey pondered gently.

‘A third eye?’ Ronan smirked.

‘He lives in a pretty rough neighbourhood.’

‘And he got punched for it. Maybe he’ll learn.’ Ronan’s tone was entirely scornful. Gansey scowled back at him.

‘Should you be drinking on a school night?’

‘It’s only a school night if you go to school the next day.’ Ronan raised his eyebrows challengingly, and Gansey shook his head.

‘I’m going to call Blue.’ He dropped the bag of chips on Ronan’s chest and stepped off the sofa.

 

 

 

Ronan had already planned to go out that night, but he’d waited for Gansey as the time had worn on, only to be further infuriated when he arrived.

This whole week had already been incredibly frustrating, and now Parrish had _talked_ , to _Gansey_ , of all people.

Gansey had suggested a restraining order, in jest, clearly, but did that mean Parrish had described how the Widower had come back? What exactly had he said? And had he said it only to Gansey, because of Gansey’s desperate need to know? Or was there someone else he might tell? From a previous school? Family members? Fuck. _Fuck_.

It wasn’t as though it would lead back to Ronan, except maybe through Ironbee, who most likely still did not give two shits. But Ronan still had the Widower’s reputation to worry about.

He went to the industrial district when he finally got out. It was generally Veil territory, but boots on the ground were always more effective and he didn’t want to be in Parrish’s neighbourhood. The journey took a bit more effort than usual… but it wasn’t like he’d never climbed drunk before.

The buildings were more spread out here, and despite the proliferation of cranes it was kind of difficult to get far off the ground. He climbed the highest rig he could find and perched there, wishing he’d thought to bring the bourbon with him. Maybe he could web up all the equipment while he was bored… that’d fuck people up in the morning.

 

It wasn’t long before he started dozing, and toppled off the top of the crane.

Falling, while oddly sensational, didn’t wake him immediately, and he was stupid-close to the ground when he realised what was happening.

‘ _Fuck_!’

He shot a few webs randomly into the sky before one caught the crane spinning across his vision and he jerked to a halt sharply, feeling like he’d dislocated a shoulder.

He swung a little and let himself drop to the ground, groaning, before folding into a sitting position and glumly listening to the distant grumbling of trucks.

There was other noise mixed in with the engines. Ronan tried to pick it out through the adrenaline haze and the remnants of alcohol buzzing in his head. Jostling, metal clanging, wood scraping, people breathing heavily. Workers unloading cargo, then. No shock there.

But there was something else. The hiss of fabric against metal, no hum of voices, the weight of the footsteps.

 _Something’s fishy in Denmark_ , Ronan thought, and immediately despised himself for it. He eased into a crouch and webbed himself onto a nearby truck.

He was going in the right direction… but he didn’t have a visual yet. He leapt across to an empty fuel tank and then climbed a high floodlight, and from there, he leapt across the top of the nearest warehouse, ducking into the shadows.

This place appeared to deal in non-perishable imported products, and the majority of the broad yard was empty, save for several long, white cargo trucks.

There was nothing moving in that space, all but devoid of cover, so Ronan slowly curved over the edge of the roof and crawled down the wall towards the cargo bay doors.

It was eminently possible that this company ( _EuroVisage, bring the European experience to you!_ ) simply operated 24 hours, and they had a fairly sensible security retinue carrying guns (in case of weirdos crawling into their warehouses at night). Or they could be smuggling, which was a way more appealing idea, in Ronan’s opinion.

The giant doors were open a sliver, just enough to admit a person/vigilante. Ronan climbed upside down through the gap, and up the interior wall.

The inside of the warehouse was well-lit and busy, and Ronan was comfortable confirming a smuggling operation, at least to his own mind.

Generally, in a regular cargo transportation company, the workers didn’t also carry AR-15s while they shifted boxes made from reinforced PP/ABS plastic. They were moving gear from an unmarked truck to the back of an EV truck.

Ronan moved across the ceiling until he was directly overhead the unmarked truck and lowered himself down slowly. Two men lumbered out of the back, carrying a large square crate between them.

Ronan tipped his head. ’Does your union know about this?’

The crate dropped, and instantly one drew his weapon. Ronan webbed him in the face and pulled, whipping him forehead first into the top of the truck, just below Ronan’s feet.

‘Seriously though, what’s in the box, man?’ He queried, as the other hastily pulled out a Glock 17. He sidestepped a spray of bullets and added ‘Is this the new Katy Perry line?’

His closest opponent shouted, unnecessarily, as the gunfire was already attracting four… six… eight other armed workers.

Ronan webbed the closest, and leapt from the truck as a semi-automatic rifle went off.

He swung lazily over to the other truck and webbed another moron in the face as he passed. Then he caught someone else’s ankles as the previous guy fired blindly into the air, and flipped him over. One of them cut and run, heading further into the vast and crowded warehouse. Ronan landed, cackling, webbed a nearby crate (wooden and presumably full of general European soaps and mirrors and other crap) and flung it sideways, squashing another enemy, and flipped backwards to avoid a chest full of bullet holes. 

‘Oh, okay, yeah.’ He shot high, caught a ceiling brace and jumped. ‘OH&S is gonna hear about this, prick.’

He swiped someone’s gun out as he swung past, narrowly avoiding a burst of bullets to his left.

The warehouse was arranged in lines of industrial shelving along sections of raised concrete, and wide stretches of driving and parking space, a little lower for ease of loading. It was a vigilante’s paradise, as far as Ronan was concerned, and he alighted on a free patch of shelf with satisfaction, discarding the gun.

He started webbing boxes and crates (many still plastic wrapped onto pallets) off the opposite shelves, pulling them gleefully in random order over the three assholes still trying to shoot him.

It was so enjoyable he almost didn’t notice the return of the man who had run, now accompanied by two significantly better armed individuals and one ridiculously dressed idiot.

Ronan had to pause, crouching, and fully process the sight of him,

He knew it was a man - tall, narrow and hardly menacing, dressed in camo cargoes and a tac-vest with an unbuttoned white blazer over the top, and his face obscured with a white mask carved in the shape of a screaming skull. Tufts of hair stood up around the straps, and Ronan grimaced.

Villains never knew how to dress.

’ _The_. _Widower_.’ The figure spread his arms theatrically, and Ronan wished he hadn’t dropped the gun, because shooting this tool and knocking him on his ass held _so_ much appeal.

He hoped that his body language effectively conveyed his absolute disdain. The remaining members of the team down there had stopped firing. In fact, they seemed to have completely forgotten their panic.

‘Are you-Are you for _real_?’ Ronan leaned forwards disbelievingly. ‘ _What_ is on your _face_?’

Skull-head laughed, reached up, and nonchalantly pulled off the mask. Ronan drew back onto his haunches, catching his breath.

 _Kavinsky_.

This was worse than he thought.

He had to stop himself from actually asking Kavinsky just what the hell he thought he was doing.

‘I was hoping you’d eventually drop by.’ Kavinsky continued. ‘You took your time. I was wondering what I’d need to do to get your attention.’

Ronan tried to think straight, to see clearly.

Kavinsky was in his AP calculus class. Not that Ronan had attended for a while. But still… two, three weeks ago… Ronan had seen him there, all smug confidence and danger.

Kavinsky… Kavinsky was a risk. A serious risk. He was only seventeen, even if he was pure evil, which was pretty fucking likely. And Ronan knew him, well enough to feel a chill at the sight of that vicious smirk. Ronan couldn’t kill him.

But Kavinsky was ruthless and resourceful, and practically designed for a life of crime.

‘You’re not welcome in this city.’ Ronan grit his teeth, and edged sideways along the shelf, navigating around cover.

Kavinsky laughed. ‘No offence, but neither are you.’ He gestured at his flanking soldiers (both probably at least twice his age) to drop back, and turned towards Ronan as he moved. He picked his way calmly through the debris Ronan had created and stood between the two open-gated trucks.

He was stupidly exposed to attack, and Ronan’s chest seized with horror at the possibility that Kavinsky might _know_ , and therefore understand that Ronan wouldn’t be able to attack him.

‘What are you moving?’ Ronan asked lowly, still shifting, watching the other figures move into strategic positions, watching Kavinsky prod a prone body with the toe of his boot.

Kavinsky shrugged, and after loosening a couple padlocks and locking clips, threw open one of the crates.

Ronan had assumed it was guns, by the size of the crates, but it was drugs. Huge, bound up parcels of white powder, crystals, pills.

He whistled, the noise warped through the modulator. ‘Fucking hell, you’ve been busy.’

Kavinsky laughed, a cold, harsh sound that grated Ronan’s nerves. ‘I want you on my team, killer.’

Ronan was shaking his head before he even finished. ‘You’re delusional.’

‘You know why this city needs vigilantes, Widower? Because the government cannot administer the law here. Not without bias, not without failure. They’re not strong enough. Not competent enough. They’re not even interested. And the people don’t want them here.’

‘Don’t lecture me-’ Ronan felt anger burning through his veins. Maybe he _could_ kill Kavinsky. After all, the world would be better off without him. If anyone could recognise that, it was Ronan.

‘I would be able to control this city.’ Kavinsky interrupted. ‘I would be able to control all crime, all justice. If you joined me, you could reshape the future of this city… our city.’

‘Into a drug haven?’ Ronan’s voice was strained with the effort of controlling his anger, fury that Kavinsky would ever think he would accept an offer like that.

Kavinsky tilted his head curiously. ‘There’s no point pretending that your goal is crime-fighting. I’ve seen what you do. Kill because you want to, target criminals because it’s easy. Unless you really believe that the theft of some shitty car is enough to earn the death penalty-’

Ronan couldn’t listen anymore. He shot projectile webs into the faces of both of Kavinsky’s bodyguards, a rope up to the ceiling and jumped at him feet first like a torpedo.

If this didn’t cave in Kavinsky’s narrow chest like a sledgehammer, at least it’d bruise the shit out of him.

Kavinsky either didn’t realise what was happening or didn’t react fast enough, because Ronan struck him dead-on.

And then Ronan hit the ground.

The suit must’ve died. The web must’ve snapped. Kavinsky must’ve hit him with something.

He was lying on his back on concrete and chunks of wooden crate and torn plastic, and Kavinsky was standing over him, smirking.

Ronan couldn’t breathe. He felt like the suit had turned to ice, and it was pinning him down. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t even turn his head, and he felt cold as death. He could barely groan, but he did anyway, watching his HUD turn red and fill with anxious information about the state of his vitals. Ronan tried to read it, tried to concentrate, but Kavinsky was stepping over him.

‘I was hoping you weren’t as dumb as you look.’ He flashed sharp teeth. ‘But we all have our failings.’

Dragging in a gasp of air, Ronan tried to move, and only succeeded in shuddering faintly.

‘I will own this fucking shithole city, Widower. And there is a place for you in it, if you use your fucking brain instead of your ego.’

Ronan twisted his neck, straining to one side and then the other, trying to lift his hand, his back, his legs. His fingers were moving, but he could see the last remaining member of Kavinsky’s team training a gun on him from a safe distance.

Kavinsky crouched below Ronan’s splayed right arm, and carefully found the bottom of his mask.

‘Wha- what- wh-’

‘Easy, man, it takes a moment for the effects to wear off.’ Kaminsky’s tone was laced with false reassurance, and Ronan grimaced. He could almost lift his hand, but he couldn’t stop Kavinsky from gently pulling the mask up to his forehead.

Ronan was close enough to see the surprised dip of Kavinsky’s brow, the way his smile slipped into a thoughtful frown.

‘Huh.’ His eyes were sly and reptilian. Ronan shuddered again, trying to prompt some kind of motion into his limbs. ‘Lynch…’

‘What… did you… do?’ Breathing was becoming easier, but talking was still difficult. Ronan could move his arm now.

’Wow. Lynch. Wow. _Mo-ther-fuck-er_.’ Kavinsky rocked back onto his heels, recovering his smug coolness. ‘I guess we’re even more alike than I thought.’

He signalled to the last standing man. ‘Let’s give our man here a demonstration.’

Ronan watched the barrel of the gun shift from himself to Kavinsky, and the unhesitating squeeze of the trigger.

He flinched, seeing the gun kick and expecting the inevitable explosion of Kavinsky’s brain, but there was nothing. Kavinsky just looked down at him again, and grinned. ‘Fucking cool, no?’

He straightened up, looking around, and Ronan jerked his head trying to watch him step back and climb onto the raised concrete under the shelves. He turned until he’d located an undamaged cargo crate, and then he tapped it quite calmly with one finger, and the entire thing splintered apart.

Desperation and fury battled for dominance in Ronan’s head.

‘That’s the energy of the bullet, plus you, obviously.’ Kavinsky explained, turning back to look at him. ‘Your momentum is something, by the way. One hell of a fucking kick.’

Ronan dropped his head back against the concrete, cursing viciously and silently.

Kavinsky jumped back to the ground. ‘Think it over, fuckwit. Nobody can stop me. You might as well be on the winning-’

Ronan threw all of his strength into flinging his arm up and firing a web towards the roof near the cargo bay doors. He felt the tension as it caught and started to pull, and he heard Kavinsky laugh. Then he was hauled upwards, movements graceless and leaden, and he swung high towards the exit.

He heard a few cracks of gunfire, and pain ripped through his leg, then his trajectory launched him out through the gap in the doors and into the floodlit night outside.

It took three attempts to web the crane he’d been sitting on earlier, but he kept swinging dazedly, trying to move from crane-to-crane and back into the city. He didn’t trust his legs to hold him up if he tried to land.


	4. 21st Century Romance (and scheming)

Adam was annotating his Chemistry notes in bed. He’d been infected by Gansey’s enthusiasm, and it seemed a waste not to study while he still felt so awake. It was nearly midnight, maybe a bit past, he hadn’t been keeping track, but the thud against the window made him jerk upright.

For a moment he couldn’t see anything outside, but then he realised that his normal view of the neighbourhood, sprinkled with building and street lights and the rose-orange flush of the city centre in the distance, was actually being obscured by something significantly darker.

He stumbled to the window and slid it open, stepping back warily as the Widower slumped through the gap and onto the floor.

‘What- Jesus, are you okay?’

‘Yeah, asshole, I’m fucking aces.’

The vigilante pulled his legs off the windowsill and lay still, breathing heavily and muttering swear words. Against his own better judgement, Adam crouched and rolled him onto his back, provoking a hiss of irritation.

It would have been difficult to see blood on the suit even in daylight, so Adam focused on searching for tears in the fabric with his hands.

‘It’s not- Stop it, idiot!’ His patient twisted and entirely failed to sit up. ‘It’s my leg.’

Adam moved his gaze down both legs, but still had to use his hands to find the ripped uneven hole in the back of the vigilante’s right thigh.

He tugged at the fabric carefully. ‘You got shot.’

His guest made an offensive noise. ‘No fucking shit, Sherlock.’

‘Be quiet, you’ll wake my brother.’

That made the Widower go still. ‘You have a brother?’

Adam swallowed, staring at the raw hole of flesh. The skin and fabric around it were smeared with blood, but the wound wasn’t bleeding particularly heavily. There was no exit wound. He wondered what would actually be considered an appropriate response to this situation.

‘It’s not bleeding much.’ He observed uneasily. ‘But I think the bullet’s still in there.’

It took a moment for the vigilante to answer, voice taut. ‘I need it out.’

He sounded exhausted and angry, even with the robot voice, and Adam felt an unusually strong surge of sympathy. He could tell that the Widower couldn’t move much, and he was reluctantly aware of what he needed to do next.

‘Is it poisoned?’ He asked uncertainly, using his thumbs to push away the edges of the torn suit. The response was a curse and some weak squirming.

‘No, it’s… that’s something else.’ The Widower took a few deeper breaths and used an impressive amount of his energy to roll onto his stomach and lift himself onto all-fours. ‘If I don’t take it out, I’ll heal around the bullet.’

‘How fast do you heal?’ Adam asked dubiously, eliciting a wince as he touched the leg again. He was sadly unsurprised by his own morbid fascination with the wound.

‘Faster, normally.’ The Widower’s breathing was a wheeze. Adam cleared his throat and stood up.

‘Hang on.’ He hoped he wouldn’t disturb Noah.

There were a couple spare towels in the bathroom, and he took one of the mismatched steak knives from the kitchen drawer. After a brief search and no luck finding anything else which could be remotely helpful, he thoroughly washed his hands in the kitchen sink.

By the time he got back into his bedroom (about five by four and fairly crammed between his single bed and his makeshift desk and a rickety chest of drawers) the vigilante had managed to stand, but was still leaning heavily against the wall.

Adam spread the towels across his bed and put the knife on the table, before going back to help the Widower across to the bed.

‘I’m not a doctor.’ He said warningly, and there was a low chuckle in reply. ‘I only have a knife.’

‘Knife… chopsticks… whatever.’ There was relief in that mechanical voice. He sat on the mattress and slowly lay back, mask-eyes twitching and refocusing. ‘It’ll heal, just… just take the bullet out.’

There was a moment of silence, and Adam turned the knife handle in his fingers.

The right leg was closer to the wall, and as he settled onto the towel next to the vigilante’s knees he lifted it over the other and into his lap, forcing the vigilante to turn onto his side.

‘Your… your brother’s asleep, right?’

Adam blinked, intense concentration broken. ‘Ah- yeah. I guess.’

‘Good.’

 

 

 

Adam Parrish wasn’t squeamish. He dug the knife point into Ronan’s leg with clinical determination, and when he’d opened the wound enough, he used his fingers to pull out the bullet.

Admittedly, he wasn’t a doctor. If Ronan was anyone else, Parrish would have left him with a scar the size of a tennis ball and nerve damage.

And if Ronan had been able to function properly, he might’ve given up on the whole procedure and made the effort of going to Aegis for help. As it was, he swore and growled and bent several of the metal bars of Parrish’s bed frame, but he managed not to yell or break anything or reflexively kick Parrish in the face.

It was usefully distracting that Parrish had Ronan’s leg across his own, and he was squeezing Ronan’s calf occasionally to hold it still, and his bed smelled like soap and books.

When it was over, Parrish used one of the towels to clean off the wound, and conjured a square of dressing (from underneath his bed?) to bandage over it. He patted Ronan’s shoulder through the suit gently, and Ronan released his death grip on the bed frame.

‘I’m Adam, by the way. Adam Parrish.’ He said quietly, and Ronan dug his face into the mattress, relieved to displace the lingering fear of accidentally calling him by name. ‘I’m going to get you some water.’

As he left the room Ronan rolled over, keeping his leg on the towel. It was still unnaturally hard to move, and he checked the monitoring system in the suit.

Kavinsky had taken more than the momentum of the swing. He’d taken energy from the suit’s power core (it dropped 80% at the time of impact), and he’d also dropped Ronan’s blood pressure and heart rate, as well as inducing almost paralysing muscular fatigue. If Kavinsky had taken anything more, it probably would have killed Ronan.

Ronan didn’t know if he’d intentionally exercised restraint or not.

Adam came back with a glass of water and put it on the rickety surface of a foldaway table tucked against the wall. He leaned over, shoved an arm under Ronan’s neck and pulled.

Ronan was too busy being overwhelmed by the absurd closeness of Adam Parrish’s golden-tanned skin and dusky eyelashes to point out that he could probably move himself. He let Parrish help him into a sitting position, wondering why the hell he’d come here.

Adam passed him the glass and looked pointedly out the window while Ronan drank.

‘How do you feel?’ He asked mildly, after Ronan had pulled the mask back down.

‘Pissed.’ Ronan grunted.

‘Do you have a proper doctor?’

Ronan sat further forward, off the frame, and stared at the side of Adam’s- of _Parrish’s_ head. His heartbeat was steady, his manner was relaxed. He seemed genuinely but only moderately concerned. Parrish was the epitome of unruffled. His skin was lightly freckled, this close up, where it wasn’t sporting the faint purple-brown remnants of his bruise. Ronan wondered how long it had been since he’d caught the sun. When he turned his head fractionally to meet what he must have assumed was Ronan’s gaze, his eyes were clear and sea-blue, unfazed by the proximity.

‘That’s going to get infected.’ He stated calmly, nodding towards Ronan’s leg. ‘You need a proper doctor.’

‘I’m not going to get infected.’ Ronan scoffed, and watched with faint surprise as Adam’s mouth quirked into a smile. After a second of silence Parrish turned away.

‘I’ve got school tomorrow.’ Parrish murmured. ‘I’m gonna sleep on the couch.’

Ronan tipped his head, involuntarily wishing that he could summon some urgent topic of discussion to keep Adam Parrish a foot from his side.

‘Bathroom’s out there to the left. You can lock this door, if you want to-’ He motioned slightly to Ronan’s mask. ‘There’s food in the fridge.’

He stepped back towards the door, and Ronan cleared his throat, disturbing the modulator.

‘What about your brother?’

He’d never even considered the possibility that Parrish had family until he’d made that comment earlier. Parrish had a weirdly… detached air, like someone who’d barely grown up with parents, let alone siblings. Ronan hadn’t put much conscious thought into the matter, but the idea that he was an orphan had seemed oddly believable.

Parrish looked startled.

‘Oh. Yeah. I’ll explain.’ Parrish concluded with a vague encompassing gesture and exited the room.

Ronan slumped back against the bedframe.

This entire night had been an immense tactical failure.

 

Ronan had to pee, but he waited half an hour for full mobility before he prised the door open, finding the tiny apartment swathed in darkness. He let the suit reassure him that Parrish was asleep, breathing slow and evenly, and found the door on his left. It was, curiously, the only other door apart from the bedroom and front doors, and Ronan briefly wondered where the brother was hiding before shrugging it off.

When he’d found his way back into the bedroom, he pulled off the mask and drew a long breath.

This was a shitty situation in so many ways.

He staggered back over to the bed and collapsed, wrapping his bad leg in a towel to avoid offending Adam’s obviously fragile sensibilities.

 

 

 

Despite meagre sleep, Ronan still woke up at dawn with barely a few hours rest. His wound had healed to an raw pink dip of skin the width of a golfball, and his vitals had levelled out to normality (by his own standard, at least).

He pushed off the bed and restrained the urge to poke through Parrish’s things. He should just leave before the brother woke up, or got home, or whatever he was likely to do.

Pulling on the mask gingerly, Ronan eased the door open. Four feet in front of him, Parrish looked up from the fridge.

‘Morning.’ He smiled uncomfortably, and Ronan registered how tired he looked with a quick and transient flash of guilt. ‘Did you sleep in that?’

Ronan shook his head, and rapidly took in the shabby, sparsely-decorated apartment. ‘You’re awake.’

Adam- _Parrish_ shrugged. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

As Ronan stepped forward, Parrish closed the fridge and frowned. ‘How’s the leg?’

Ronan half-turned and lifted the offending article, balancing on the left as he presented it for inspection.

‘Jesus.’ Parrish said, and Ronan was thoroughly pleased to hear him finally sound genuinely impressed. ’That _was_ fast. That’s incredible.’

He lowered his leg and faced Parrish, awkwardly uncertain of how to continue.

‘It’s genetic.’ He offered finally.

Parrish looked at Ronan’s chest, blinking slowly. ‘Impressive.’ He paused. ‘I’m glad you’re feeling better.’

Ronan wished he had any idea what Parrish was thinking. He wished he knew anything about Parrish. He wished he’d let himself get roped into talking to Parrish at school, as Ronan Lynch.

 _Be realistic_. That would never have worked.

‘Yeah.’ Ronan forced out, discomfort crowding rationality out of his brain.‘I guess I owe you, Ratchet.’

Parrish broke the tension by snorting and turning away. ‘I owed you first.’

 _There_. There, at least, was an explanation.

For why he’d bothered to help Ronan at all. For why he’d let him in and pulled the bullet out and let him stay. For why he’d risked his own safety and the safety of his brother-

Ronan looked around sharply, noticing they were alone.

‘Is your brother…?’

Parrish looked around vaguely. ‘He went out.’

Ronan stopped himself from pointing out that it was six in the morning. Maybe all Parrishes were obsessively productive.

Adam turned back to the fridge, but didn’t open it. He looked around and tapped the door.

‘We have cereal.’ He offered, then hissed and lifted a fist in frustration. ‘But no milk. There’s… mashed potato, though. And some ham.’

He sounded so uncomfortable even Ronan felt like wincing.

‘I’m not hungry.’ He said boredly, and Parrish’s relief was so evident it was painful to watch.

’Still pissed?’ Parrish asked quickly, sidestepping the food issue.

Ronan growled. ‘Fucking oath.’ He moved two feet to the side and pulled himself onto the back of the worn-down sofa.

‘What was it?’ Parrish had obviously settled on dry cereal for his own breakfast, and he stood opposite Ronan, crunching handfuls of it. ‘Electrical interference? A toxic substance?’ His eyes widened, and Ronan stared. ‘Do you have a laboratory? How do you manufacture those webs? Is it an original chemical compound?’

His brain caught up with his mouth and he faltered suddenly, apparently choking on cereal. ‘Sorry.’

Ronan tried not to snigger.

‘It wasn’t anything like that.’ Ronan replied amusedly, as Parrish gulped a few mouthfuls of water. ‘It was a guy, right? And when I kicked him, he absorbed the energy of the kick and just… fucking transmuted that shit.’

Parrish frowned, apparently unconvinced.

Ronan crossed his arms to stop himself from throwing up the middle finger. ’He fucked up the suit, too, and my fucking…’ He swiped his hands through the air, trying to signify “ _basically fucking everything_ ”. ‘It’s fucking bullshit.’

Parrish raised an eyebrow. ‘He absorbed the energy of your kick. And of your suit. And of your…’

‘ _Everything_.’ Ronan complained.

‘Was it a weapon, or… him?’

‘Him.’ Ronan confirmed bitterly. ‘Definitely him.’

Parrish looked aside thoughtfully. ‘That’s unprecedented.’

‘No shit.’

‘And dangerous. How does he contain all that energy? Where does it go? What about Newton’s third law?’

Ronan scowled, even though Parrish couldn’t see it. ‘He can use it.’

‘He can channel it?’ Parrish tapped the small countertop behind him and added seriously. ‘What’s he going to do?’

Ronan was about to point out sarcastically that “ _fuck shit the fuck up_ ” seemed like the most obvious answer, when he understood Parrish’s actual meaning.

Kavinsky was basically a walking weapon of mass destruction.

‘He’s moving drugs into the city.’ Ronan explained gruffly, shifting his ass on the lumpy sofa. Parrish rubbed his neck.

‘That’s bad.’ He acknowledged cautiously. ‘But it’s not… you know, _blow up an embassy_ bad.’

Ronan nodded slowly. He doubted Kavinsky’s plans were so… moderate.

‘Is he like you?’ Parrish asked, and Ronan looked up so sharply Parrish raised a hand to placate him. ‘I mean, do you think it’s genetic? Or rather, cellular? Or could he be chemically inducing it somehow?’

Ronan groaned and covered his head with his hands.

‘I don’t care, Parrish!’ He snapped, and panic suffused his limbs before he remembered that Parrish had introduced himself. He steadied his tone and carried on. ‘Whatever I throw at him only makes him stronger!’

‘You should stop throwing things at him.’ Parrish suggested flatly.

Ronan did give him the finger that time.

Ronan only left when Parrish was heading out to school, and he dragged himself home with a confusing variety of emotions. Parrish seemed to trust him, which was both unbelievably stupid and annoyingly gratifying. He was also brilliant, and Ronan _needed_ that, right now.

Kavinsky was more dangerous than Ronan had considered. Parrish had noted that there might be an upper boundary to the amount of energy Kavinsky could absorb, but without testing it, it wasn’t exactly ideal to just fling missiles at him. He’d theorised some potential plans of attack for Ronan to pursue, and for once Ronan wasn’t inclined to throw someone off a building for telling him what to do.

Ronan crawled in his bedroom window and pulled off the suit, stretching stiff muscles as he lay down on the floor.

 _Adam fucking Parrish_. His apartment, his bed, his deep, intelligent blue eyes. The way his cheekbones curved in sharp definition, the way his jaw tightened in concentration. Christ, he got under Ronan’s skin.

Ronan wished for a moment that everything wasn’t so fucking complicated.


	5. What time is it? Gangsey Time!

Gansey insisted on inviting him to dinner at Nino’s on the weekend, and Adam politely explained that he was working Friday and Saturday, fully expecting Gansey to cheerfully drop the matter.

But he promptly assured Adam that Sunday afternoon would be fine and that if he wasn’t free they could do it the following weekend instead.

So Adam reluctantly agreed to go. It wasn’t as though he didn’t want to hang out with Gansey or Henry, but he thought the possibility of sitting in a corner while surrounded by other fellow students he didn’t particularly want to talk to was fairly unappealing. He wasn’t sure who else Gansey would invite. Other debating team members? Ronan Lynch?

Adam was still recovering from his lack of sleep earlier in the week, and he made sure he worked all the additional hours he could get in preparation for going out.

He hadn’t seen the Widower again after he’d climbed out the window Wednesday morning. His wound had healed rapidly, but Adam found himself repeatedly returning to the problem of the drug dealer. He was especially distracted during physics, and made notes in the margins of his notes, skipping ahead a few chapters in his textbook to find relevant theories and equations.

He’d discussed potential strategies with the vigilante, and it was obvious that the man was no fool. He was rash and aggressive, but not a stranger to advanced scientific principles.

Adam, reluctantly, waited for him to come back.

He thought it likely that the vigilante would rush to the attack, and it worried him.

The potential power of his opponent was immense. Theoretically, he might be able to obtain energy from anything with an electrical charge, even at the atomic level, and if the Widower was right and he could combine the stored energy of multiple sources, he could constantly be increasing his strength. The Widower said that he absorbed energy from the momentum of objects thrown at him, but what about his own momentum when he didn’t actively expend energy to produce it?

Was, for example, the energy of him falling likely to strengthen him when he landed, or kill him? Could he be injured at all if force against him only gave him strength? Could he die? Did he have to use the energy he produced in force, or could he use it at a cellular level, for regeneration?

The vigilante still hadn’t returned, and Adam was on his way to Nino’s.

He asked Noah to come with him, and after a moment’s consideration his brother agreed. It might be awkward, showing up with family, but at least it would give him someone to talk to when things inevitably got strained and uncomfortable.

Adam only had to walk in the door to feel anxiously out of place. He was precisely two minutes early, but Gansey was already in one of the long booths at the far end of the restaurant. Henry was sitting nearby, gesticulating wildly, his voice lost in the hum of other customers.

Between the two of them there was a girl, short and colourfully dressed, and on Gansey’s other side there was Lynch.

There wasn’t anyone else… Adam was prepared to walk out right away, but Noah materialised at his side and frowned.

‘I thought it was a party.’ He murmured curiously.

‘Me too.’ Adam swallowed. Maybe the others were late. Maybe he could wait until they showed up.

He didn’t want to wade into the Gansey inner circle like this.

Across the room, Henry caught sight of him and pointed, and Noah whispered ‘Go on, or it’ll be weird.’

‘It’s already going to be weird.’ Adam protested, but he moved anyway, self-consciously straightening his shirt.

He hadn’t been sure about the dress code, but his best shirt was at most barely smart-casual anyway, so that was what he’d worn. Noah had opted for his usual outfit of loose jeans and a sweatshirt, and Adam didn’t mind.

Gansey stood up when he saw him, but being stuck between the girl and Lynch didn’t leave him much room to go anywhere.

‘Adam!’ He smiled cheerfully. ‘You’re right on time!’

Adam regretted being obvious. Noah hummed, distracting him.

‘Hey, Gansey. Uh, this is my… my brother. Noah.’

Gansey blinked, momentarily baffled. For a moment he seemed to contemplate shaking Noah’s hand, and then decided against it.

‘Noah. Nice to meet you, I’m Gansey. This is Henry, Ronan - and uh, Jane. Or rather, Blue. Blue, Adam.’

Blue (or Jane?) did reach across to shake Adam’s hand. ‘Hi.’

She was pretty. Adam tried not to stare at the coloured clips and bands sticking out of her spiky hair. He tried not to stare at her.

Henry lifted a hand in greeting as Noah slid calmly into the booth next to Lynch, who hadn’t looked up from some small metallic object he was playing with.

 

 

 

Gansey and Blue were dating, Adam discovered, and had met when Gansey had (inadvertently, according to him) insulted the artwork of Blue’s classmate at an exhibition, and after a long (and hilarious) argument Blue had threatened to gut-punch him.

At that point in the story Lynch sniggered softly.

Noah was peculiarly fascinated with them. Adam tried to remember when he’d last seen Noah so enthused about anyone, or anything, but it made his head hurt and Henry quickly distracted him with questions about what Adam had planned for his Chem lab project.

The pizzas came (they must have ordered before Adam arrived, he realised uncomfortably) and he went to get himself a drink (Noah wasn’t thirsty). By the time he got back to the table Noah had ingratiated himself into Lynch’s space, sparking a degree of nervous fear in Adam’s gut.

He really didn’t know Lynch well, and it was hard to imagine that Gansey would be friends with someone who was actually dangerous, but he _looked_ dangerous.

Lynch had pulled his black singlet to one side, revealing an excessively complex tangle of ink stretched across the entirety of his back. Adam leaned on the side of the booth in spite of himself, mirroring Noah, in order to see it clearly.

‘That’s wicked cool.’ Noah mused happily. ‘How much did it hurt?’

Lynch shrugged, almost smirking.

Blue commented that tattoos were an under-appreciated art form, and Gansey took on a slightly doubtful expression.

‘Everything is an under-appreciated art form according to you.’ Lynch responded drily.

Blue pointed at Henry. ‘Technology-’ at Gansey, ‘-philosophy-‘ and at Lynch - ‘-bitterness.’

Henry laughed, quietly, and Adam realised he was holding and examining Lynch’s metallic thing, which looked like a detached metal eyeball.

Lynch let his shirt fall back into place and flashed a cruel grin at Blue. Noah looked enraptured, and Blue calmly turned her attention to him.

‘What kind of art do you do?’ He asked her, unusually intense interest suffusing his normally soft features.

Adam hadn’t eaten pizza for months. He was three pieces in and there still seemed to be an endless pile left.

Gansey swapped places with Blue, careful not to interrupt her conversation, and motioned for Adam to lean forward.

‘Have you heard about Void?’

Adam stared at him blankly, and Henry joined the conversation briskly. ’The new powered villain.’

Adam tipped his head in negation.

Gansey’s expression turned serious. ‘Supposedly has the ability to appropriate energy.’

 _The drug dealer_. Adam blinked and tried not to let his eyes widen.

‘He was barely a rumour a week ago, and now he’s laying in some serious damage.’ Gansey continued.

‘Damage?’

‘Numerous human casualties.’ Henry reported. Adam glanced at him, but he seemed focused on the robot eye.

‘Human?’

Gansey shrugged, drawing Adam’s attention away from Cheng. ‘No reports that he’s encountered any other powered individuals yet, but it’s hard to say if that’s a matter of planning or luck or discretion. But they’re attributing several deaths over the last week to him, more if he’s laid hits against the mob.’

_Mob?_

‘Georgiana Joyette, the senator who wanted powered registration? Or Louis Ortez, the ex-Chief of Police, who was supposedly pushing for an anti-corruption commission? Caleb Calhoun, a whistle-blower who gave testimony against the office of the mayor?’

Adam felt his stomach twist, thoughts flickering to the Widower.

‘You deem it systematic?’ Henry said, without any evidence of surprise. Adam felt it was more of a summary for his benefit than an actual question.

‘Void’s undermining law enforcement and political accountability.’ Gansey added. ‘Actions finally undertaken to counter corruption and bribery in this city have been turned at the gate-post by murders he’s committed.’

Adam felt no need to investigate the matter of corruption. It was city-wide knowledge that the Office of the Mayor and nearly every precinct in the city had been compromised by occurrences of bribery, coercion and inter-departmental rivalry. The Chief of Police himself received nearly a dozen accusations of corruption every month. It never came to anything. The city was, in reality, owned by the corporations, and as far as Adam was aware, most of the population simply accepted it.

Crime was generally formalised by the activities of gangs and the orchestration of kingpins. When powered criminals popped up (as Void had, and before him, Leech) it took powered vigilantes (usually acting alone, beyond the aid or control of the law) to confront them.

Coalitions had been formed in other parts of the country - like the Avengers, the X-Men, the Watchmen, the Justice League - but the biological/laboratory mishaps here apparently had less capacity for cooperation.

The only successful alliance the city had ever seen had only arisen recently, and its longevity remained to be seen.

Adam repeated: ‘Mob?’

Gansey looked doubtful. ‘More hits than you’d expect, from someone simultaneously targeting reforms of the justice system, but it sounds like his _modus operandi._ ’

‘Who are your candidates, Gansey?’ Henry asked, lifting his eyes. His voice was, as usual, intelligent and faintly amused.

‘All bets are off.’ Gansey brightened. ‘This type of power makes defeating him no small matter.’

Adam frowned. Gansey was trying to determine who could defeat the Widower’s drug dealer? Perhaps this could be helpful.

‘Hasn’t Pythia been proven effective against powers before?’ He inquired thoughtfully. ’That was a government sanctioned operation.’

‘Before or after the event?’ Gansey asked cryptically, reaching for another slice of pizza. ‘And now Pythia is not alone. This could be useful in determining vigilante motivation, that’s all I’m saying. Have more pizza. The circumstances are horrible, but someone will have to stop Void before he lays waste to the whole city, _before_ he gains too much power.’

‘You want to find out who will confront him first?’ Adam asked, reaching for the Margherita.

Gansey shook his head. ‘Given the opportunity, any _one_ would confront him. I’m interested in who defeats him, and why?’

Adam hesitated before he answered, making sure there was no food in his teeth. ‘I don’t understand, exactly. If any one of the heroes or vigilantes would _try_ and kill him, why would it matter which one _does_?’

‘Because Gansey’s a crazy fanboy.’ Someone said roughly, and Adam had to look around to figure out that it was Lynch, levelling a contemptuous sneer at the three of them. Adam stared at him for a moment before looking at Gansey, unwittingly seeking confirmation.

Gansey looked fairly unbothered by the comment, which Adam understood to mean that Lynch was just being an ass.

There was a moment’s silence, which Henry Cheng broke.

‘I think it’ll be a team effort. New Avengers, and what have you.’

‘With Pythia and her heroes leading the charge.’ Gansey said, with no small degree of pride.

‘Charge…?’ Blue turned her head. Both she and Noah had been distracted by Lynch’s acerbic comment. ‘Need I point out that both Ironbee and Aegis use energy based strategies in attack?’

‘Ironbee’s repertoire is a little broader than that.’ Henry chimed in smoothly.

‘And they can have Pythia tell them in advance how they’re going to get their asses handed to them.’ Lynch said disparagingly. Blue scowled at him.

‘What about the Gray Man? ’ Noah interjected, eyes round and excited. ‘What about the _Widower_?’

Adam spared him a brief, startled glance. He had no idea Noah knew anything about vigilantes. And he did _not_ like the way Noah’d said Widower.

‘They’re loners.’ Blue pointed out.

‘And morally questionable.’ Gansey added.

‘But if they all have the same goal-’ Noah continued ‘- why would they risk letting Void endanger the city?’

Silence fell across the group, and for a moment Adam thought Noah might have offended someone, but everyone seemed merely thoughtful… except for Lynch, who maintained a consistent degree of hostility. He caught Adam’s searching gaze and immediately scowled and looked away. Adam wondered if Lynch hated everyone except for Gansey.

‘Are we done?’ Gansey gestured across the crumb strewn table. ‘Are we finished?’

There was a series of affirmative responses and they made their way out of the restaurant. Adam shot a look sideways at Noah and tried to think of a civilised way to head off to the subway. It was early, but that just gave him more time to study at the apartment.

Gansey cleared his throat. ‘To home, then.’ He nodded deferentially to Adam. ‘If you’re willing.’

Adam opened his mouth to (politely) decline.

‘Aw, yes!’ Noah interrupted suddenly, and Adam silently groaned. ‘Can you show me that sculpture you were talking about?’ This was directed at Blue, who smiled at him affectionately.

 _It’s a good thing I like this kid_.

But even that wasn’t enough to prevent Noah’s next move from further frustrating Adam.

Gansey had driven to Nino’s with Blue in his bright orange Camaro, and Lynch had picked up Henry in his silver BMW. Henry was apparently not ready to get back in the car with Lynch, and Adam didn’t blame him, but Noah insisted that he wanted to go in the Camaro.

Adam would’ve fit, but it seemed rude to refuse Noah’s suggestion that he go with Lynch, especially after Blue prodded Lynch into unwilling agreement.

 

 

 

So Adam ended up in the passenger seat of Lynch’s BMW (not failing to notice the scratched paint and dented metal). His companion was curiously silent. It wasn’t as though Adam expected him to be friendly or talkative, it was more that Adam expected him to be actively unpleasant, and he wasn’t that either.

He still knew pretty much nothing about Lynch, and it felt oddly surreal being so close to him. For a long time Lynch had been little more than an urban myth around school, and now that Adam was in a car with him, he got a curiously different sensation than the one he expected. It wasn’t fear… more a kind of humming anxiety, a keen awareness of Lynch’s presence and the potential threat he posed.

He picked up the eye that Lynch had placed on the dashboard and examined it in the dull interior light.

It was polished steel on the outside, and appeared to be a protective cage for a small camera which formed the iris. The sclera was made out of clear plastic filled with some sort of liquid, which glowed slightly in the light.

Lynch appeared to notice his interest but didn’t comment, his mouth a flat line.

Eventually he jerked to a stop at a red light (Adam was concerned for a second that he was going to run it) and surprised Adam by glancing across at him.

‘Your brother’s odd.’ He observed bluntly, and Adam stared at him. ‘Is he Aglionby?’

Adam couldn’t decide whether to glare at him or keep his expression neutral. ‘No.’

‘What school?’

‘He…’ Adam lost his train of thought, distracted by Lynch’s aggressive gear changes. ‘He…’

Lynch braked again, cursing the driver of the Ford in front of them, and wrenched the steering wheel to the left, sending them over the curb and up to an underground parking gate.

It looked like an old factory conversion, one of the new expensive places in Monmouth. Lynch waited until the gate came up and threw the car forward. Adam sank into his seat, watching concrete pillars whip rapidly past about a foot from his window.

When they finally slammed to a halt at the far end of the parking garage, neither of them moved to get out of the car.

Adam was trying to identify his own mood, and Lynch reached across to pluck the eye out of his hand. ‘It’s a prototype.’ He said coolly. ‘Cheng’s working on robotic therapy animals.’

‘Yeah?’ Adam shifted in his seat to look at the side of Lynch’s face, registering his clenched jaw with uncertainty. ‘Are you modifying it?’

‘Pfft.’ Lynch’s laugh was harsh. Adam had a moment of deja vu. ‘There’s no point modifying what Cheng does. He’ll always be light years ahead of you.’

Adam hadn’t expected Lynch to sound like this, all low voiced and restrained. Adam had expected egotism and testosterone-fueled cruelty. He watched shadows flicker across the pale slope of Lynch’s cheek as the Camaro pulled up near them.

‘You’re in Robotics Lab, right?’ Adam asked anyway, prolonging the inaction as he watched the others puzzle their way out of the lamp-orange car. ‘And Calculus?’

Lynch threw open his door and threw himself out of it. Adam lingered only until the door slammed closed again, and then followed suit. Apparently their conversation was over.

 

 

 

Things were getting too complicated. Ronan wasn’t pleased.

He couldn't believe how badly this week was going. First he'd been trashed by Kavinsky, then Gansey had invited Parrish to pizza night, then Parrish's little (probably? It was kind of hard to tell... It was difficult to look directly at him without feeling creepy) brother had been insistent that he wanted to ride in the Pig. 

Which left Ronan in the awkward position of either being suspiciously vehement that he wouldn't drive Parrish, or being suspiciously _willing_ to drive Parrish.

He let Sargent bully him into it, but as soon as he’d pulled the door closed and they’d been wrapped in the smooth reassuring silence of the BMW, something had climbed from his stomach to his throat and stayed there persistently for the whole trip.

He could have just opened his mouth and told Ada- _Parrish!_ -the truth, but honestly, that was the worst available option. Letting Kavinsky kill him seemed like an ingenious idea relative to talking to Parrish.

Parrish had been in his car. Ronan might never be able to rid himself of the mental image. He’d examined an eye from one of Cheng’s robots, turning it over and over with characteristic delicacy, and it was all Ronan could manage to focus on the road and not stare at his hands.

Ronan had nearly run a red light, he was concentrating so hard on not gawking. He’d swallowed convulsively and glanced over, and Parrish had been gazing directly at the traffic light, and he’d covered up by making a slightly rude comment about Noah (which was possibly unfair, the kid seemed alright, even if he had just plunged Ronan into hell).

By the time they’d made it into the garage Ronan had, predictably, left Gansey eating dust in the Camaro, and it’d just been him and Adam in stilted silence.

He’d explained about Cheng’s eye, and Adam had looked at him - at _him_ , for once, not some stranger in a damn mask - and Ronan had felt like he could start to unravel the fundamental difference in the way Adam was.

And then Adam had said something that made his senses prickle in warning.

 _Calculus_.

Which meant Adam knew Kavinsky. More importantly, Kavinsky had at some point been near Adam, a concept Ronan couldn’t abide without a furious urge to punch something.

Adam- _Parrish, for fuck’s sake_ \- followed Gansey and Sargent up the stairs. Ronan hung back, half a mind to talk to Cheng, half a mind to get back in the car and take off, but as he was stalling, he realised that Parrish’s brother was standing nearby. Unexpected, like a guest from last night’s party who materialises in the morning even though you’d forgotten they were there. He smiled glibly at Ronan. ‘Nice car.’

‘Yeah.’ Ronan glared at him. ‘Don’t touch it.’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’ Noah answered, still smiling unnervingly, and for a moment Ronan thought he was actually going to be out-menaced by Parrish’s kid brother. Then Noah turned and vanished up the stairwell after Cheng, and after a dissatisfied grunt and the fruitless kick of a nearby pillar, Ronan followed.

Cheng had occupied Parrish in expressive conversation by the time Ronan got upstairs, even though they’d barely made it into the apartment, and immediately furtively led him to a distant window.

Ronan might have been able to hear them if he’d been less frustrated and more creepy, but he decided to aim for the kitchen instead. Gansey and Sargent were in there, Sargent retrieving a yoghurt from the fridge. Ronan reached over her head for a beer.

‘Can’t you even pretend you might come to school tomorrow?’ Gansey groaned.

Ronan sneered, opened the beer, and took two steps before colliding with a force field.

"God fucking dammit, Sargent!"

She smirked and gave him the finger. ‘Are you gonna go sulk in your room?’

‘Well, fuck, Sargent, you’ve foiled my devious scheme.’

Gansey sighed heavily, and Blue glanced his way with a look Ronan was extremely familiar with. Affection. Adoration, even. Gentle concern.

‘Give Parrish a chance, please, Ronan.’ Gansey rubbed his eyes underneath the glasses. He wore them ever more frequently since Sargent had been around. Ronan knew how much she liked them.

‘Why?’ He grimaced theatrically. ‘You’re already too much work.’

He had to walk through the living room to get back to his own bedroom, and got tripped up by the sight of Adam tracing shapes on the window pane, gesturing emphatically to an attentive Cheng, squinting in lamplight and outlined against the city lights.

He wasn’t even very attractive, Ronan thought maliciously. He was narrow and almost-thin and the poster-boy for white-trash.

Ronan got a couple more steps towards his door before he remembered Noah Parrish, who was sitting on the sofa by himself calmly and watching his brother from a distance. Ronan padded over, weighing up his desire to be spiteful against his desire to get the hell out.

’S’up, Noah. Want a drink?’

He presented the beer with much gusto, and Noah grinned at him so brightly Ronan felt a stab of actual appreciation for this weird creature.

Adam cut off the discussion with Cheng and returned to conversational proximity, eyeing Ronan with no small degree of suspicion.

Henry came over too, and as Sargent and Gansey (probably delayed by making eyes at each other in the kitchen) rejoined the group, he addressed Ronan.

‘I would like to see those fibre-optics you’ve been working on, if possible?’

Ronan lifted one shoulder in half-assed acquiescence, but he couldn’t help feeling relieved. As Ronan Lynch, all he’d managed to do was behave increasingly standoffish and unpleasant to Parrish, which was ideal… but he couldn’t quite manage to push that over into active cruelty.

Cheng led the way into his bedroom, which struck Ronan as brazen. It wasn’t like he’d attack Cheng, and he knew that Henry knew that, but not even Gansey stepped foot inside Ronan’s space without checking himself.

But he needed Cheng’s help, so he kept his mouth shut. He closed the door behind them and Chainsaw fluttered off the footboard of his bed to land on his shoulder and nudge his ear.

Henry Cheng prodded one of Ronan’s huge person-sized stereo speakers with a foot and blinked. ‘Retail therapy?’

Ronan didn’t answer, flipping up the false floor of an even more huge birdcage to dig out his suit.

Chainsaw (a raven, Ronan’s true solace) was never actually closed into the cage, but Ronan found it useful to leave her as protector of the suit when he went out without it. Most people were hesitant to stick their hands into a raven’s cage, with good reason.

He pulled out the suit and Cheng grabbed it out of the air nimbly.

‘Not too bad, compared with the last time.’ He remarked drily. Ronan shrugged.

Cheng produced a pair of small welding goggles from god only knows where and scoped out the extent of the damage.

Ronan sat on his mattress and drank, watching Cheng and thinking about Parrish, thirty feet away, sitting on Ronan’s couch and talking to Ronan’s friends and just generally not being as highly-strung and irritated about it as Ronan felt.

Cheng made a small noise of displeasure.

’S’fucked?’

’Not at all.’ Cheng extracted a pair of long tweezers from some other unquestionable location on his person and pinched something off the suit.

Ronan leaned forward, eyes narrowed. He could only see the small, crushed object when he sharpened his gaze, and Cheng must have only picked it up with his sensors.

‘The fuck is that?’

‘A bug.’ Cheng explained nonchalantly. ‘I believe you’ve been compromised, Lynch.’


	6. If you want peace you should prepare for war

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one, sorry.

Ronan drank the remaining bourbon, but it wasn’t enough.

He left the apartment just before midnight.

Gansey had much earlier taken the Parrish brothers and Cheng home, after Cheng had seamlessly patched the bullet hole in Ronan’s suit and destroyed the bug.

Ronan tried not to think too much about it. Cheng said that his analysis suggested it was merely a tracking device, and as Kavinsky already knew Ronan’s identity, it had probably just been used to help Kavinsky’s soldiers evade vigilante intrusion again. Sargent was using some of their massive living space to produce another one of her sculptures, so Ronan knew Gansey was as safe as he could be overnight.

The only concern, slowly growing and overtaking Ronan’s studied disinterest, was that he’d spent the night - that first night - in Parrish’s apartment, and if the bug had been functional, and Kavinsky got curious…

There was a whole building’s worth of potential people Ronan could have stayed with… but Parrish was Aglionby. Parrish was in Kavinsky and Ronan’s calculus class, for fuck’s sake!

So when Ronan was sufficiently buzzed and feeling reckless, he climbed out the window and cut a straight line across the city towards Parrish.

It was a dark night, coming over stormy. Ronan thought he might be able to sit on the roof in the rain until morning without being interrupted, but as he approached he judged the rough location of Parrish’s apartment in the building and noticed that the lights were still on.

Unless Ronan had the wrong apartment, but… at this point that was wishful thinking.

Parrish’s window had the most stupidly narrow sill possible, so Ronan webbed one a few apartments above and scaled up the wall.

He hesitated before poking his head over the sill. There was probably a line here that he was crossing, if it wasn’t already buried in the sand miles behind him.

_Well, fuck._

He looked in the window cautiously, but Parrish was just sitting at his desk, studying. Ronan sighed and tapped the window.

Parrish glanced around with faint surprise, but he didn’t pause before coming over to open the window. He didn’t say anything, and Ronan climbed inside with his dignity far more intact than the last time he’d visited.

He found Adam examining him expectantly when he straightened up, apparently searching for injuries.

‘Still awake, nerd?’ He bit out, uncomfortably conscious of Parrish’s close scrutiny.

‘I had an idea.’ Parrish said, stepping the minuscule distance across to the desk. The top was stripped of varnish and the legs were starting to bend, but Parrish had still stacked it with textbooks and notebooks and loose papers and scraps of tech from school.

He flipped a few pages back in one of the notebooks and offered it to Ronan.

It took Ronan a few moments to comprehend the rough sketch, and more to decipher the neat but extremely small print labelling the diagram.

_Clever. Very clever. And pleasingly simple._

Adam was watching him in earnest silence, but before Ronan could say anything the door banged open, startling them both, and Noah stepped in.

‘Adam, the movie guy-’

He cut off abruptly, and stared at Ronan.

‘Oh.’

Parrish seemed to step back on reflex, distancing himself from the suited stranger in his bedroom. Ronan just stared back at Noah, judging his level of panic.

‘Noah, this is-’

‘When did you make friends with a superhero?’ Noah interrupted excitedly, words a rushed tangle.

‘He’s not a superhero.’ Adam said automatically. Ronan stayed still, resisting the urge to shoot him an unseeable but still mildly offended look.

‘Uh… yeah. He is.’ Noah pointed at Ronan emphatically, then said, directly to the mask. ‘Nice suit.’

Ronan lifted a hand in acknowledgement, trying not to make any sudden, potentially terrifying movements.

Noah kept smiling at him, and Adam cleared his throat and reached for the notebook. Ronan felt like he should wonder why Noah wasn’t more confused, or alarmed, but at this point he was beyond being surprised by Parrishes.

Ronan didn’t relinquish the notebook before tearing out the page with the diagram, and Adam’s horrified reaction was priceless. Ronan knew he had to get out before the Noah situation got more complicated. It looked like the Parrish apartment hadn’t been invaded by Kavinsky, at any rate.

‘I’m out.’

Ronan couldn’t exactly get a run-up in the confined space, so he just dived through the window and let himself plummet a few metres before shooting a web out at the opposite building.

He heard Noah Parrish shout “Byeee…’ as he fell.

 

 

 

It did rain, eventually. Ronan sat on the railing of someone’s balcony across from Parrish’s apartment and let the coolness seep through the suit to his skin.

He’d tucked the diagram into his suit, against his chest as he hunched over, in case the water permeated the sealed fabric across his shoulders, but he had to keep fighting the impulse to pull it out and re-read Adam’s precise handwriting.

Since Ronan had encountered Parrish at Aglionby earlier in the year, there had always been the faint hope ( _fear_?) that talking to him would dispel Ronan’s lingering fascination. Something about him - the voice, the manner, the whole personality - would undoubtedly render him another displeasing mark against Aglionby’s name, against _humankind_.

But Adam wasn’t… displeasing. He was infuriating, but not displeasing. Most alarmingly, he seemed unthreatened by the Widower, which Ronan hadn’t experienced ever since he’d first put on the original suit and punched someone in the face.

Adam either failed to recognise that the Widower was a threat or he was consciously assessing that he wasn’t, equally mysterious and questionable possibilities.

His opinion of Ronan himself was a little harder to gauge, but that wasn’t surprising, given that Adam probably hadn’t known anything about him until Gansey had dragged them both out earlier.

Sargent and Cheng were both at the point of treating Ronan’s outbursts and aggression with some degree of dismissiveness, but it had taken time, months of trepidation and Gansey’s intervention to reach even that.

Parrish’s cautiousness was incomplete. He seemed to regard Ronan with suspicion, not quite fear, exactly, ameliorated by the kind of contingent interest he would predictably have in anyone who could offer knowledge.

Ronan wasn’t sure he had any sufficiently attractive knowledge.

There was the Widower. But Ronan had never really considered it a piece of knowledge that really belonged to him. It still felt like someone else’s secret, like someone else’s power. Ronan was just… what was left.

Kavinsky. Now that was different. Kavinsky was someone’s problem, and Ronan didn’t know if that meant the Widower or not. He didn’t want it to mean the Widower, but what Kavinsky had said stung, sat like a barb under Ronan’s ribcage and made him angry enough to break things. If Gansey was right, and Kavinsky was moving against everyone in the city who wasn’t already bought and paid for by the mob and the corporations, defeating him was work for the Veil. If Kavinsky was just some crazy little shit who thought he was gonna make it big by being showy and dodging the reaching tentacles of the Veil, then, _maybe_ , he became a problem for the Widower.

Cheng had already confirmed that Kavinsky was avoiding detection, so he had knowledge of the reach of Ironbee, and possibly even Pythia. For Ronan to find him, he would have to search the old-fashioned way.

Ronan was around to see Adam leave for school the next morning. He’d abandoned the balcony post, and settled on a nearby rooftop with a good angle of view, and it seemed like taking off at dawn would leave the job unfinished. So he waited until Adam had tracked across several blocks and gotten on the bus to throw in the towel and head home.

 

 

 

Gansey sat next to Adam in the classes they shared. He was so cheerfully casual about it, Adam couldn’t help but feel impressed. Initiating social contact was never a skill he could claim, and Gansey did it with such ease and charm that Adam wasn’t ashamed of feeling a certain amount of admiration. Gansey talked about Blue, now, as well, prompting Adam’s realisation that he’d never mentioned her before the meeting and he never spoke of her with anyone outside of his particular group of friends.

Adam wondered if he was part of that group now.

He wasn’t sure how that would have happened.

He even saw Lynch, leaning against the lockers before Robotics, talking with Cheng in the most anarchical slump he could possibly have assumed. He seemed both entirely at ease and yet utterly disdainful of his surroundings.

He wasn’t like Gansey, charming and pleasant and likeable, but he had his own kind of charisma, intelligent and vicious. Powerful, like Gansey, but in a very different way.

Adam wasn’t prepared to speak to Lynch or Cheng independently, so he tried to pass them as unobtrusively as possible.

It might have been his best day at Aglionby so far.

He took the bus home.

The Widower had dropped by the apartment last night. Adam had showed him the beginnings of an plan… an anti-Void plan, and the vigilante had taken it. Adam was pleased, definitely. He wanted it to work. But he’d also had that instinctive suspicion when the man had knocked on his window that he was going to be collapsing on the floor again.

It wasn’t as though Adam wasn’t prepared to de-bullet him. It was more that… the more he contemplated and reasoned out the risks associated with Void, the more it worried him that the Widower’s abilities were more of a hindrance than a help.

His strength and speed would only lend more power to his enemy, and after he’d disappeared for nearly a week Adam had almost wondered if he’d ever come back. If Void (the epithet unknown to Parrish before Gansey updated him) had killed him.

There was nothing he could do, nothing he could have done, but it still gnawed at him.

So when the Widower had reappeared, uninjured and relaxed, Adam had practically been relieved.

Adam stepped off the bus, immediately becoming caught into a river of jostling people, swirling in predictable currents down the pavement, and turned towards home, only to find something hard and round digging up into the back of his ribcage as a bruising grip seized his elbow.

 

 

 

Ronan reached Parrish’s not long after dark.

He ensured Gansey was safely buried under his research at the apartment and bolted.

It might have been a source of greater conflict to be hanging in one area all night until Void was dealt with, but Ronan suspected there were vigilantes far more effective than him roaming the city anyway. Keeping Parrish alive until he could test and implement his plan was the priority.

The windows of the Parrish apartment were unlit. Ronan tried to open the bedroom window, but he couldn’t move it without splintering the frame.

Probably Parrish had taken an extra shift at work.

Probably it was nothing to worry about.

Ronan hung next to the bedroom window, seething. He could go to search Parrish out at the supermarket, but that was fucking tedious, and it shouldn’t even be necessary. Why would Parrish break routine the one week Ronan wanted him to be his usual orderly self? And what if he wasn’t at work?

Ronan was debating whether to start out for the shop or kick the window in, when the bedroom light flicked on.

He lifted his gaze, irritation springing forth, but it was only Noah. He glanced round the room, and caught sight of Ronan at the window.

It was too late to drop out of view, and now Ronan could see the rising panic on Noah Parrish’s face.

He helped Noah open the window, and all Noah offered was a breathless “ _Adam_?”

If Kavinsky had taken Adam, Ronan had no idea where, and he wasn’t prepared to think about why.

Gansey’s regular scouring of news articles and updates kept Ronan informed of Kavinsky’s behaviour. He’d been ramping up the brutality since their first encounter, and dodging attempts at intervention. Ronan had tried tracking him before, and come up empty-handed, or at one point, against a bar full of mobsters. It wasn’t as though he’d been confident of a victory against Kavinsky’s unique brand of soul-sucking villainy, but it hadn’t mattered.

As long as Kavinsky lived, everything Ronan cared about (Gansey, Matthew… and that was pretty much it, really) had been at risk.

To have dragged even Parrish into the mess was immeasurably unpleasant.

Noah said he was gone, and when Ronan asked “How?”, Noah just repeated it, frantically, like he already knew how bad it was.

 

 

 

Later, Ronan would refuse to countenance the idea that he panicked.

But at that exact moment, for minutes upon minutes, time slowing to a breathless crawl, all he could actually achieve was an ugly stream of curse words and a frenzied search through Adam’s apartment.

Noah kept saying his name; _Adam_. And other things, about Ronan helping him. About Adam needing help. Needing Ronan.

After some point Ronan couldn’t even tell if Noah was speaking or if he was just repeating the things Noah had said in his own mind.

He felt unconnected, adrift. He felt like a spark in an abyss. He felt-

Noah shouted ‘ _Please_ ’, and it was achingly loud, like he’d shouted right in Ronan’s ear, but after a second to recover Ronan realised he was gone.

The apartment door hung open, the hallway outside dark and bare.

Ronan only had one option left.


	7. How abhorred in my imagination it is...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good luck, preciouses. Take care out there.   
> Sorry it's another short one.

Kavinsky was at the convergence of the industrial district and the docks.

He’d brought an entourage, dozens of armed thugs Ronan could only assume were mercenaries, possibly more mobsters, depending on how far Kavinsky had gone in winning them over. He’d even set the stage, a broad, flat cargo area dotted with sea containers and cranes and trucks and all manner of climbable objects.

Ronan recognised he was being taunted. Baited.

He went anyway, suit still patched over the thigh where he’d been shot.

Kavinsky had the mask on, a theatrical flair, another jolt of fuel for Ronan’s incendiary fury.

He sprawled on the hood of one of the SUVs, and fired AR-15 rounds into nearby sea containers until Ronan swung in off a crane and superhero-landed on the ground a couple hundred metres in front of him.

‘Wooooooo…’ Kavinsky slid onto the bull bar and stood. ‘Hey, bitch. Nice entry. Veeeery dramatic.’

‘Exactly how much of your product do you sample, Yorick?’

‘You should try it, punk. Might do something for your shitty personality.’

‘I cannot… literally _cannot_ express how absurd you look right now.’

Kavinsky laughed, disturbing normally, worse echoing out of the contorted skull face.

‘Are you ready, bitch?’

Ronan had already started towards him, eyeing the figures loitering in shadows and behind cover around them.

‘Bring it on, fuckwit.’

It came as a surprise that nobody fired at him, not even Kavinsky. Ronan had expected this, if not to be simple, then to be straightforward. He was, after all, walking in front of a firing squad, and in practicality… there were only so many bullets he could evade.

Kavinsky just laughed again, and gestured. Someone beside the SUV pulled the door open, and dragged out Parrish.

He was upright, and he didn’t looked badly hurt, at this distance. It hardly mattered. The mere concept of someone dragging Parrish around made Ronan’s blood boil.

He crouched, instinctively readying himself for a forward lunge, grounding at least some of his anger.

‘I gotta say, not what I expected.’ Kavinsky bobbed slightly on the bull bar, grandstanding for someone’s benefit, though Ronan didn’t know who. ‘Hell, I was keen to drag out your usual fuckbuddy, but wow, a new one? Couldn’t be more excited for you.’

Adam was staring at the skulled maniac, brow furrowed, expression shadowed.

‘Christ, get it over with, you vain motherfucker.’ Ronan growled.

Kavinsky jumped off the bull bar and took a few steps toward him. ‘Do you get it yet? Law and order have fallen into line! Once dear old Dad is dead, and the rest of his fucking _mutri_ belong to me, this shithole city will really feel like home. If you joined me, you’d never have to risk losing one of your… _adorable_ little playmates again.’

 _Fuck_ … Ronan had seriously hoped he was kidding about that. He snorted involuntarily. ‘You’re joking.’

‘Thickshit.’

He wasn’t joking. This wasn’t a way to kill Ronan at all. This was some sick negotiation, and Parrish was the bargaining chip.

Ronan hesitated, and straightened up.

‘Come on, K. It’s never gonna happen. I mean… You’re fucking crazy. That’s some Joker-level psychological shit you’ve got going on, man. I’m not touching that.’

Kavinsky might have smiled, it was impossible to tell, but he lingered for a moment longer with his gaze on Ronan.

And then he turned back to Adam, and Ronan felt himself chill.

Adam had been watching, motionless, careful, but as Kavinsky approached he didn’t disguise his alarm. He took a step back, and Kavinsky followed, reaching up to push the mask off his face.

‘Ready, princess? This is gonna sting.’

Ronan glared at the side of Kavinsky’s face. Kavinsky grinned at Parrish, and Parrish stared back, silent, chest rising and falling visibly even from Ronan’s distance.

Slowly, Kavinsky reached out and let his fingers curl around Adam’s throat.

Several things happened suddenly and simultaneously. Adam was flung backwards, at least a few metres away from Kavinsky. Ronan shot a web to a crane overhead, jumped upwards and swung, dodging a hail of bullets from at least five directions and catapulting first into one man on his left, swinging wide around a container and colliding with another. And something searingly bright dropped from the sky and landed next to the SUV.

Ronan dispatched two more of Kavinsky’s soldiers in his spiral under the crane, before landing, running across a container and backflipping into a third, kicking off him and latching onto a tower of stacked containers.

Others were toppling, being thrown left, right and upwards into metal and concrete and each other. Someone hit the side of one of the SUVs and left an impressive dent. Ronan felt a reflexive surge of elation. Something golden and black cut across the night sky, fast and low.

A little burst of anxiety erupted under Ronan’s ribcage, but he pushed it down. The playing field was almost clear.

He landed twenty feet from Kavinsky, who was leaning unperturbed against his car. The guy who’d opened the car door was crumpled on the ground, and Parrish was gone.

‘This is embarrassing, Lynch.’ Kavinsky said gleefully. ‘You’re on the hero convention’s leash now? They got a little collar with your name on it, or what?’

Ronan stepped forward, unflinching. Off to his right, someone landed on the top of a sea container surrounded by a hazy blue bubble of energy, typically and inadvertently graceful. _Aegis_. The forcefield vanished. She must have removed the rest of Kavinsky’s men. She focused on him, and even through the pink steampunk goggles Ronan thought it was evident exactly how pissed she was.

‘Now you-’ Kavinsky pointed at her. ‘-you’ve got some motherfucking power in that energy field. More than Incy Wincy over here. Why don’t you bring that crazy shit over here, bitch?’

Ronan couldn’t have imagined a more suicidal thing to say to Sargent, even if Kavinsky was saying it just to be a dick.

Aegis, predictably, flipped. There was an immense bang, and the SUV behind Kavinsky skidded backwards, the front end caving in as Kavinsky straightened. The force didn’t knock him over, and he smiled, a twisted, sick thing. Ronan knew he’d obtained something even from that, even though Aegis had been careful not to hit him directly. She’d taken a risk throwing a field between him and Parrish, and she was, like Ronan, even _more_ than Ronan, practically just a battery.

‘Blue, Ronan-’ Ironbee’s voice cut into Ronan’s suit. ’They’re ready. Can you keep him busy?’

‘For how long, exactly?’ Aegis already sounded 300% done with Kavinsky.

Ronan hadn’t needed much convincing to go to the Veil for help. Find Adam. Kill Kavinsky. Shared goals, just like Noah Parrish had said.

He’d already discussed Parrish’s concept with Cheng, and it wasn’t too much of a leap to explain to them that he’d fished Parrish out of trouble and in return he’d designed a Kavinsky-catcher. There was absolutely no mention of bullets, medical procedures, or Parrish’s bed.

Pythia had given him a location (in fact, Pythia had practically shovelled him out the door, making some weird comments about Parrish’s psychic volume being unbearable). Ironbee had given him devices. Aegis had offered him backup (and a safe place to stash Gansey until this was done… if they got it done).

‘Time is kind of a malleable concept.’ Cheng replied calmly. Ronan’s HUD registered Ironbee rocketing back into play, and he felt the vibration through his skin. The suit was glinting, yellow and black, propulsion jets firing blue-white streams of heat in loops and lines across the sky. As he flew, flares launched off the body of the suit and tracked in disorientating arcs and pirouettes overhead.

Kavinsky made a mocking “oooooooh” sound and fired the AR-15 after a trail of heat.

An orb of blue light zapped in and out of being under his arm, Aegis’s attempt to flip the gun up to hit him in his face. He smirked and swung the barrel towards her lazily, and she deflected the bullets easily with a shield.

Ronan webbed his arm and pulled, expecting little to no traction, but still jarred to find himself ripped forward through the air and thrown over the hood of the SUV. It was no trouble to ditch the web and curve so he could land on his feet, but now he had some idea of Kavinsky’s stored power, he doubted it was just from Aegis tonight. More likely he’d absorbed plenty before this all started.

Another little pulse of anxiety. Ronan shoved it away.

As if just to confirm Ronan’s suspicions, Kavinsky followed the path of the bashed-in SUV and wrapped his fingers around the bull bar. He lifted the whole damn car by the front end, a feat not even Ronan would have been able to accomplish with full Widower strength and a litre of Red Bull at his disposal. Kavinsky swung it effortlessly, the metal groaning as if fully prepared to detach from the bull bar at any given second, and even as Ronan bolted in the opposite direction it sailed past him, angled higher than expected.

It was a fairly impressive sight - a dented black car the size of a small tank, soaring majestically against a starless night sky - but then it collided with Aegis’s forcefield and the whole front end bunched up with the cataclysmic sound of pulverised metal and shattering glass.

The car tipped and fell a dozen or so metres before it crashed to the ground, and Ronan watched Aegis straighten up from a crouch and dispel an opaque blue shield, thick enough to be metal.

Like Ronan, Aegis’s strength was finite. Ronan had never bothered to ask how long she could sustain her power use.

‘Four in place.’ Cheng reported. ‘Hook him up if you’re ready.’

Ronan webbed the other SUV and jerked it towards Kavinsky, covering his own frustrated mutter.

‘He’s gonna strip them straight off the walls.’

‘I’ll do what I can to hold them up.’ Aegis broke in, crisp and efficient. ‘But we need to do this.’

‘Don’t disturb the line-’

‘Lynch! I know!’

He groaned and jerked the car in the opposite direction. Kavinsky was standing on the other side, looking at his fingernails. ‘That stuff’s fucking rank, Lynch. You should see a doctor about that.’

Cheng started linking something to his HUD, locations, Parrish’s devices planted all over the area, four active, and then another, pinging as small red circles all around him. Ronan took a deep, quiet breath. He thought about Gansey. He thought about Aegis and Cheng. He thought about Matthew and Declan. He thought about Parrish.

And then he ran.

One web, high and over Kavinsky’s head, and then a dramatic leap towards him. He felt Kavinsky’s elbow break his nose and knock him onto his back, but remarkably, he didn’t completely steal Ronan’s momentum. Ronan rolled backwards into a handstand and flipped upright. The web he’d managed to stick to Kavinsky’s back shuddered, a narrow silver line trembling all the way to where it was planted in one of Parrish’s energy converters. Even as Kavinsky realised Ronan’s move was a feint, the device began to glow and spark viciously. Kavinsky grimaced and reached over his shoulder to try and dislodge the web. Ronan threw out another, behind himself, at a pinging red circle on the hull of a distant ship, and webbed the other to Kavinsky’s reaching hand. His wrist twitched, the web went taut, and Kavinsky’s eyebrows went up.

‘Cute trick, Lynch. Fucking moronic.’ He went to lunge forward, blue haloes appearing around the two hooked turbines (careful not to interrupt the rippling line of web into the converter), but the webs held him in place

Ronan ducked sideways, throwing a web to a pinging red circle to the left of his vision, and flicking the other end to Kavinsky’s right ankle. He fired another at Kavinsky’s free arm only to discover it was foolishly premature. Kavinsky flung his arm out faster than Ronan had expected, hauling him off his feet. Ronan tripped, felt his knees scrape across the ground, and then his head and shoulders slammed into the side of the second car. The force left a dent the size of a small crater, and tiny squares of window glass showered across Ronan’s back.

He had a moment to register exactly how much it hurt before Kavinsky threw his power into another swing, the web looped around his arm for extra heft. Ronan heard Blue shout a warning as he was flung in a baffling spiral. He hit the lumpy metal of a shipping container and felt it depress behind his momentum, and fell face down into a twisted mound of metal and glass, only to be dragged forward from the car wreckage onto the asphalt.

He thought Kavinsky might have dislocated his shoulder. The suit had been breached over the abdomen, and he must have been bleeding, but he couldn’t feel it. It was also impossible to breathe through his nose.

Something severed the web still attached to his wrist, and his arm fell slack against the ground.

‘Lynch?’ Someone tugged at his good shoulder, and Ronan reluctantly pushed onto his knees. Blue was crouching next to him, hand heavy on the back of his suit, a shimmering shield on her right arm lifted in front of them. ‘Ronan?’

Through the blue haze Ronan saw Kavinsky rip the webs from his trapped arm and his shoulder and discard them, grinning.

‘Need your nose wiped for you now?’ Kavinsky howled at him. ‘Don’t be so fucking wet.’

Ironbee landed on Ronan’s other side and used an armoured hand to pull Ronan to his feet.

‘All devices are in place.’ Cheng updated. ‘Seems you will require all of them, or he will most likely blow the first ones up within thirty seconds.’

Ronan felt like spitting bile about the loss of the element of surprise, the fact that Void clearly had them outmatched, and that Ironbee was basically useless in combat against him, but he knew he didn’t have time. He was putting off the inevitable.

Tonight would finish either him or Kavinsky, and at this point the odds weren’t in Ronan’s favour.

‘Already given up?’ Kavinsky sounded bored, or bitter, it was hard to tell. ‘I can always find another one of your friends to play with. Dick III, if he’s not hiding under Mommy’s skirt somewhere. Or Parrish, if there’s anything left of him.’

Ronan’s spark of anxiety flamed into consuming wrath.

He vaulted onto the top of Aegis’s shield and fired a web directly at Kavinsky’s right forearm. As the line went taut, and Kavinsky tried to unbalance him, Ronan moved with the pull, throwing his own momentum behind it enough to jump over Kavinsky’s head and finish by tossing the web to a converter attached to a sea container, the third highest in a stack.

Before Kavinsky could dislodge the web, Ronan twisted in midair and snapped another web to his free hand. He ejected the other end towards a converter on the other side of Kavinsky, attached to what looked like a water tanker, but he judged that the shot would take too long to hit home, and utilised his own low landing crouch to web Kavinsky’s left ankle to a nearby convertor on the base frame of a crane.

The web attached to Kavinsky’s left hand landed true, but Ronan was already in motion, jumping a few feet off the ground to fling a high web to the crane and propelling himself in a rapid spiral. When he found a clear trajectory between Kavinsky’s right shoulder and a convertor on the ground a couple hundred metres away, he webbed them together. Another, high convertor, this one a few hundred more metres away on the side of a shipping warehouse, Ronan attached to Kavinsky’s right knee.

Void was starting to struggle, aggravated rather than alarmed, and Aegis and Ironbee had scattered to try and prevent device failure. Ronan could feel the numbness of his stomach and face starting to give way to vicious stinging pain, a signal that his body was starting to regenerate, but he refused to surrender his energy to any cause other than trapping Void.

Cheng had manufactured eighteen of the converters between the time Ronan had showed him the diagram at school and the time he’d swooped in to pick Parrish up off the ground and carry him to safety. Ronan strung Kavinsky up between every one of them, and each still sparked and thrummed with energy as Kavinsky twisted and fought. It was finished in barely a minute. Ironbee landed beside Ronan, mumbling measurements through the comms link. He wasn’t certain Void would run out of energy before the devices became incapable of channeling it.

Ronan shouldn’t have, but he paused, caught his breath. _Gansey. Sargent. Cheng. Parrish_.

He needed to finish this. He needed to do it now.

Aegis said something - it might have been “You don’t have to do this.” - and Ronan ignored her.

‘Take off, midget.’

‘I’ll break you like a twig, Lynch.’ She sounded uncertain, but whether or not it was leaving, or letting him do this that was bothering her, Ronan couldn’t say.

‘Go check on the baby.’

‘Fuck you.’

And then she was gone.

Ironbee stayed, but he did nothing to stop Ronan as he thoroughly wrapped Joseph Kavinsky, swearing and writhing uselessly, in a cocoon of silver webbing.

Ronan still wasn’t convinced it would work. It seemed more likely that Kavinsky would split open the webbing and emerge, furious and deadly.

Gradually, the long, energy-thieving webs stopped shaking. The cocoon stopped emitting foul (but muffled) curse words. Finally, Ironbee cleared his throat.

‘He’s gone.’

Ronan could confirm that Kavinsky’s heart had stopped, but he could barely believe it.

He didn’t really want to think that hard about any of this.

‘What do we do now?’ Ironbee asked, awed and unfamiliar with this clinical dispatching of an enemy.

Ronan looked around grimly, at the scattered figures on the ground and the tangled lines of white chemically engineered web. ‘Stick him in a lead box and sink him.’

‘Tsk. Efficient.’

‘You’re sure he’s dead, Cheng?’

Cheng hesitated. ‘Wait.’

Ronan went tense, lifted a hand in preparation to strike, but Cheng shook his head and lifted a metal-clad arm. ‘Wait.’

He was silent for several more minutes, before finally lowering his arm. ‘Alright. That’s total brain death. Not even an electric shock could raise him now. Necromancy, maybe, but we haven’t seen that yet.’

Ironbee rounded up the surviving members of Kavinsky’s drug crew, and Ronan disposed of Kavinsky.

It was hard to be dispassionate, but equally difficult not to double and triple wrap his corpse, and eventually Ronan had settled things to his satisfaction.

Kavinsky was dead.

And Ronan had killed him.


	8. Introducing Squad Mom: Everyone's Fave Superhero

‘Ronan.’

‘Nerd.’

Aegis - or now, more accurately, Blue - settled into a chair opposite him at the metal table in Veil command. She looked about as lively as a coma patient.

‘I’m glad you ‘fessed up, Lynch. I was getting impatient.’

He quirked an eyebrow and she smiled tiredly.

‘You think Pythia didn’t know as soon as you even thought about being W?’

‘I genuinely don’t.’

She snorted. ‘Yeah, me neither, but that’s not what they say.’

Ronan turned his gaze on the wall. He felt more tired than he had for months, but at least the searing pain of healing had simmered down. It was difficult to stop picturing Kavinsky’s last moments in his head, and it was even more difficult to stop himself cycling through unbidden anger, disgust and horror at the memory.

‘Parrish will live.’ Blue said finally, although the name did little to ease Ronan’s discomfort. ‘He hasn’t said much… or, anything, really. He’s still a bit…’

She winced demonstratively.

Noah would be worried. Ronan nodded dully. It was too late and he was too distracted to feel odd about not wearing his mask with Sargent around. His nose was healing, but the inside of the mask was still bloody.

They sat in silence for a long few moments, contactless, effortless. Sargent knew him well.

‘Are you going to tell Gansey?’

‘No.’

‘You’re just going to risk letting him find out if you end up dead in the suit?’

Sargent could be refreshingly blunt sometimes. Ronan smiled cruelly. It was that or lose Gansey while he was still alive.

 

 

 

Parrish was lying on a med-bed in the lab. He was very still, as though asleep, and despite his tanned skin he looked pale. When Ronan stepped in he stirred drowsily and tried to sit up. He moved with slothlike lethargy, his lips practically colourless, and as Ronan (mask on… he suspected this wasn’t the time of further revelations for Parrish’s psyche) came past to prod the medical computer, Adam caught his elbow and used it to pull himself upright.

Ronan ignored him, flicking through bio-scans and analyses on the computer. Aegis had been in here too. Her powers had been dampened by Kavinsky’s drag on the forcefields, but he hadn’t managed to cut enough out to affect her neurology, which had been Ronan’s main concern.

Adam was a different story. Within a second or so Kavinsky had been able to dangerously lower his brain activity and heart rate, alongside nerve and muscle responses. He was recovering, much slower than Ronan had, but he would get there. Long-term damage? Could be neurological, could be nothing.

Even his hand on Ronan’s elbow was half-gripping, half-sliding, fingers not quite clenching the way they were designed to.

The collar of his school shirt had been folded up to cover bruises on his neck, and the computer registered more, where Blue’s forcefield had hit him in the chest, and where he must have been pulled or pushed by Kavinsky’s thugs. Ronan pretended not to notice, stepping back from the machine and facing him.

‘You look like death.’ He observed drily.

Adam apparently didn’t have the energy to scowl at him. He just stared, eyes half-lidded.

Adam said: ‘Ka- Void?’

Ronan shrugged. ‘He’s dead.’

He wasn’t really sure what to expect in response to telling Parrish he’d killed his former classmate, but it wasn’t a sigh of relief.

Adam’s forehead creased delicately and he slowly lifted a hand to rub his eyes. They were watering, going increasingly blue, probably from the effort of trying to be upright and breathing at the same time.

‘You’re sure?’

Adam Parrish had a unique brand of ungraciousness that really grated on Ronan’s nerves.

‘I’m not a fucking idiot.’

‘Okay.’ Parrish exhaled, a noise that would have been heavy if he’d been able to manage it. ‘I don’t remember much.’

‘Good for you.’

His hand was still on Ronan’s arm. Ronan couldn’t decide if he wanted to shake it off and walk out, or stay and dent Parrish’s pride. He didn’t know exactly what the toxic feeling threatening to climb out of his gut was (guilt? resentment? disappointment?), but it was quickly becoming indistinguishable from anger. The room hummed softly with the sound of medical and scientific equipment, some original, some with Cheng’s modifications. Parrish made an aborted move to adjust his collar.

‘I need to go home.’ He said distantly. ‘I have school tomorrow.’

Ronan stepped back, pulling his arm free. Parrish dropped his hand to the bed unsteadily.

‘I’ll send someone.’ Ronan said coldly.

 

 

 

Blue Sargent hadn’t thought much of Richard Gansey the Third when she first met him.

For almost a month she believed it was only Gansey’s propensity to acrobatically stick his excessively unattractive boat-shoed foot into his excessively attractive mouth that had prompted their meeting. Gansey had offhandedly remarked that the art piece a friend had produced (not, admittedly, as traditionally aesthetically pleasing as many would like) was an ill-advised mashing together of Picasso, Pollock and anarchical theory, and Blue had been standing close enough to hear every over-enunciated pretentious syllable.

Someone like _that_ , who obviously considered himself the pinnacle of all value judgements, was like a flame to Blue Sargent’s personal gunpowder. The ensuing argument with Gansey covered matters of art criticism, entitlement, social engineering, the monopolisation of wealth, environmental sustainability, and the fundamental precepts of functional democracy.

After nearly three hours (during which Gansey insisted upon calling Blue “Jane” because the name Blue offended his common sense) and several threats of physical violence (exclusively from Blue to Gansey), they finally simmered down to a gentle debate about the ethics of creativity and information sharing, and Blue gently accepted Gansey’s well-meaning sincerity as recompense for occasional outbursts of ill-advised egotism.

Relieved, and not hardly impressed, Gansey had politely requested an opportunity to see Blue again, and she had offered the date and location of a local theatre production, the most informal event she could summon to mind.

Eventually she discovered that Henry Cheng was a friend and classmate of Gansey’s, and it hadn’t taken Pythia’s combined psychic power to recognise that Henry had quietly pushed them into each others’ paths.

It was less that Henry was meddling, and more that he was a problem-solver, a modifier, and an architect of alliances.

Henry, for several months, had been assisting Aegis in the field, and in return had gained the support of Pythia. His technology and access to all functional security feeds across the city had undoubtedly already revealed Aegis’s true identity to him, but he soon willingly returned the honour, introducing himself by showing up randomly on Blue’s school campus with a gift of a small butterfly clip which was also a drone.

Likewise, Henry, who had grown up in the company of powerful individuals (both of the natural and unnatural variety), had revealed his vigilante (although Henry was on the hero end of the community-voted scale of superheroes) identity to Gansey III, on the basis that Gansey knew more about power-related events, individuals and behaviour than anyone else in the state, and Ironbee was determined to recruit his strategic prowess for the fight against Leech.

Henry’s delicate strategy of introducing Gansey to the team by placing him in Blue’s hearing range must have been available for consideration by Pythia, but, irritatingly, not to Blue herself, who was typically left in the dark until the last conceivable moment due to Pythia’s apparently compulsive need for melodramatic flair.

And that was the significantly compressed, excruciatingly awkward, hiccuping and at times infuriating story of how Blue met the boy she loved.

 

 

 

By the time their three hour argument was over, Gansey had already realised Blue was one of the most passionate, singleminded, and (despite a low tolerance for bullshit) humanistic people Gansey had ever met. He briefly contemplated the likelihood that putting Ronan and Blue in the same room together would actually cause the universe to implode.

Gansey never ceased to be faintly shocked by every revelation of his own innocence. He no more had suspicions of short, ferocious Blue Sargent being Aegis when they first met than he’d had of Henry Cheng (shared debating team, Philosophy and Ethics class, and quirkily random conversationalist) being Ironbee until Henry had openly admitted it. No matter how many of these shocks to the system Gansey received, he felt entirely unprepared for the next one. Henry Cheng/Ironbee had actively engineered his meeting with Blue? Shocked! Blue’s mother and her mother’s two best friends together became the most powerful prescient force potentially in existence? Shocked! Blue’s half-aunt (also gifted with some powerful telepathic abilities) was actually attempting to strengthen herself by depleting the psychic energy of others?

Gansey routinely needed to sit down in the midst of these events and just sigh.

It wasn’t as though Gansey wasn’t prepared for the unexpected. He had, after all, spent almost half his life researching the subject of abilities and their consequences. It was just that the step between being deeply absorbed in theoretical information and being suddenly embroiled in practical observation and experience of it was kind of clunky for everyone.

Except for Ronan, who was equally unsurprised and disinterested whenever anything new happened.

Gansey had been unpleasantly shocked to discover that Adam Parrish had been abducted by Void. Certainly, he’d expected a decisive event to relegate the Widower permanently to the role of Veil ally or Veil enemy, but he would never have imagined it would involve _Parrish_.

Blue had explained that Adam had been helping the Widower build a Void trap, and Gansey had sighed.

When he got to school the next day (for once, with Ronan in tow, though God only knew what had inspired this momentary lapse in delinquency) Henry had greeted them in the carpark and warned them that Void was Kavinsky, and Kavinsky was dead, and Gansey had to open the Pig again and sit down.

Ronan had shaken his head slowly and leaned across to spit on the tarmac. Gansey had winced. Ronan and Kavinsky weren’t friends, not by a long shot, but news of Kavinsky’s death clearly escalated him from the usual simmering anger of school to the point of fury.

It was somehow worse to find Adam Parrish in their morning Philosophy class, already at his desk. He was slouching, unusual for Adam, but it was obvious as they got closer that he shouldn’t have come in. Gansey frowned and shot a concerned glance at Henry, who missed it. Henry hadn’t said anything about Parrish being harmed the previous night, but he looked terrible. Maybe that was merely the natural effect of being kidnapped by a psychopath.

 

By class break Gansey was elbowing Henry out of conversations with other people.

‘Is he okay? He doesn’t look okay… Did you check him? Why’s he here?’

Ronan, who may or may not have actually gone to his morning class, rolled his eyes, and Henry shrugged defensively. ‘He was cleared on multiple bioscans. He presumably needed time, perhaps, therapy, most likely, but he preferred to return home this morning.’

‘Therapy? What happened?’

Henry stopped to exchange a brief and highly technical series of sentences with someone passing by (Robotics, or mechanics - it was less that Gansey didn’t understand them and more that he didn’t care enough to try) and turned back when they were suitably isolated again.

'He’s clear.’ He repeated firmly. ‘And approaching him at this juncture would inevitably raise suspicions about the Henry shaped individual he encountered during last night’s activities.’

He glanced over Gansey’s shoulder at Ronan, who shook his head again in an annoyingly patronising manner.

‘Given that he’s already involved, wouldn’t it be wiser to simply explain-’

Ronan said: ‘No.’

Henry pointed at Ronan.

‘He’s not a fool. He’ll figure it out.’ Gansey argued, perfectly cognisant of the fact that he’d personally never made the connection without assistance. ‘And for his safety-’

‘No.’

Henry sighed and raised both hands placatingly. ‘Think of it less from a strategic perspective and more from a personal one.’ He suggested sagely, and Gansey opened his mouth to protest that he was thinking very personally, thank you very much, because he _personally_ didn’t want Parrish to have an aneurysm. ‘Adam has experienced something potentially traumatic involving powered individuals, and suddenly revealing that he cannot escape their influence even _here_ -‘ (Cheng’s emphasis was almost as derisive as Ronan’s usual way of saying “ _Aglionby_ ”) ‘- may only serve to alienate him.’

Gansey hesitated.

He looked at Ronan, and Ronan looked back, expression bored. No help there.

‘Alright.’ He acceded reluctantly.

 

 

 

Adam was struggling to accept that yesterday he’d been here, and yesterday had actually been enjoyable, up to the point when someone had put a gun to his back.

He couldn’t muster much enthusiasm when Gansey came into Philosophy and sat next to him, even though he’d resolved to behave as pleasantly as possible in order to disguise his exhaustion.

He hadn’t managed to sleep or even eat, because his entire digestive system seemed revolted by the idea of making an effort, so he hadn’t had food since lunch yesterday, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it down anyway. Even though he’d gradually regained full use of his limbs, making his way to the bus this morning had required an extra fifteen minutes and he’d nearly fallen down the stairs out the front of school.

Classes seemed to drag on for aeons.

Adam found Gansey tapping his desk a couple times to stir him in Philosophy, but to his horror, Ridderhof caught him as the period finished.

‘Mr. Parrish, a word.’

Gansey was only a step in front of Adam, and he hesitated. For a moment Adam thought he was going to stop, and felt embarrassment heat up his cheeks, then he reluctantly stepped out of the room.

Adam turned to their philosophy teacher with forced politeness. He felt uneasy, being left alone with Ridderhof, but he recognised it was a consequence of feeling weak. He didn’t actually _know_ Ridderhof, in the same way as he hadn’t actually known Kavinsky, although this cautiousness existed in spite of his understanding that he’d never really known someone and trusted them at the same time anyway.

‘I’m not accustomed to having students fall asleep in my class, Adam. All of my students are required to meet a minimum standard of attendance and behaviour-’ Adam couldn’t prevent a small influx of resentment. He knew that was a lie. Last week Tad Carruthers had flicked a piece of gum at a picture of Sartre on the projector screen and Ridderhof had merely sighed. Punishment of students whose parents _paid_ for them to be here was so rare Adam couldn’t even summon an example. Ronan Lynch was prime evidence of _that_. ‘- and given that sleep seems to be of higher priority to you than my lesson, I can’t in good conscience confirm that you’re meeting them.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, I-’

‘Sir.’

That was Gansey, back in the doorway, face set in a classically confident and beguiling expression. Adam flushed again, and snagged his fingers together in front of his waist. He felt a strong urge to adjust his shoulder strap to distract attention from how red his face was, but he’d lost the bag (and more upsettingly, his books and notes) when several large heavily-tattooed men had forced him into the trunk of a car at gunpoint.

‘Mr. Gansey.’ Ridderhof said, tone betraying both respect and reluctance.

‘Adam spent last night helping me with debating preparation, sir.’ Gansey lied easily and so comfortably Adam needed a second to remember it wasn’t true. ‘I’ve gotten a touch behind, what with helping my mother over the last few weeks.’

There was an unspoken reminder in his words. The Gansey family was not to be denied what they wanted, and if that meant Parrish got a free pass, Ridderhof seemed able and willing to accept it.

Adam nodded gratefully as he passed Gansey, who lingered a couple moments longer exchanging pleasantries about his mother and her campaign with Ridderhof. He was pleased to escape the threat of punishment, definitely, and relieved to avoid Ridderhof’s patronising comments about his “difficulties”, but Gansey’s pity still left something of a bruise on his dignity.

He didn’t wait, eager to avoid a criticism of tardiness from his next teacher.

Disturbingly, Lynch was in class. Adam hadn’t even realised they shared Chemistry, because he’d never witnessed Lynch crossing the threshold, but there he was, unimpressed, a couple seats to Adam’s left at the back of the class. When Adam glanced at him, he narrowed his eyes in a silent challenge, and Adam quickly looked away.

The dizziness started in that second period, and by third he had to excuse himself from Computer Science to stagger into the hallway and lean paralytically against a row of lockers, trying to suppress the trembling of his arms and legs.

He felt nauseous, hunger warring with disgust at the idea of food, and he resolved to stumble in the direction of the bathroom in case he threw up, or someone with the authority of expulsion came across him.

The bathroom spun and Adam collided with a cubicle frame. His legs were giving out… God, was he dying?

It didn’t feel like what Kavinsky had done last night- like all the life was just being ripped out of him - but it still felt horrible.

The tremors eased a touch when he sat down on a toilet and put his head between his knees, but he needed food, ideally sugar. He didn’t have any, of course. He hadn’t been able to stomach food during break.

Things were blurry. His eyes must have been watering. The little graffiti covered cubicle was still spinning, making him feel worse.

He squeezed his eyes closed and thought about Computer Science. Philosophy. Physics. Chemistry. Nothing would stick. He couldn’t focus.

The Widower had been angry last night, but Adam didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe he’d been angry because he’d been forced into an alliance, or maybe he’d been angry because he was sick of picking up after Adam… but it hadn’t been Adam’s intention to become Void’s hostage. He felt pretty damn bitter about the whole thing. Once, the vigilante had helped him, and then Adam had returned the favour, and that was supposed to be it.

No more victim status. No more helplessness.

Kavinsky had to go and upset the balance. Kavinsky had to reduce him to this, a wobbling shadow of what he needed to be in order to survive.

It must have been a while since he’d left class. The dizziness was starting to subside thanks to quiet immobility, and Adam forced himself upright and pushed the door open. The bathroom was still mercifully empty, and he edged over to the sinks, arms out for balance. He tried splashing water on his face, but it didn’t help clear his head, and after a wobbly attempt to step away from the mirror, he changed his mind and sank to the floor, clutching the sink with what remained of his strength.

 _Breathe. Breathe_. If he moved he was going to throw up on the floor (and probably himself) and he couldn’t face explaining that to someone today, so he just stayed very still.

He’d surely been gone for almost fifteen minutes now. Nobody had come after him, at least.

‘What the fuck, Parrish.’

Adam felt his dignity take a long, slow swan-dive into an abyss. He moved his head about an inch so he could see the blurry figure by the door.

Lynch had his hands in his pockets, shirt aggressively lopsided, and his tie knotted like a noose and hanging halfway down his chest. He was emanating disgust, and Adam appealed to any available deity to strike him dead in order to escape this humiliation.

‘Get off the floor.’ Lynch snarled impatiently.

Adam simultaneously wished he could, in fact, get off the floor, and wished he could tell Lynch to fuck off.

When it became clear that Adam wasn’t about to stand up, Lynch took two unnervingly long strides forward and made him, wedging his shoulders between two hands like he was a distasteful trashcan and dragging him to his feet.

It was impossible to avoid tipping over without grabbing Lynch’s arms, and Adam silently pleaded with himself to not puke down Ronan Lynch’s shirt.

Lynch grunted: ‘What is _wrong_ with you?’ and Adam snorted.

‘I have computer science-’

‘It’s fourth period Calculus.’ Lynch corrected snidely. ‘How long have you been crying in here?

‘I’m not-’ Adam felt one of his legs give out and was surprised to find that he didn’t topple to the side and brain himself on the mirror. ‘I was _not_ -‘

‘Are you _pissed_?’ Lynch sounded amused.

Adam really hoped this day wasn’t going to get any worse. If it was someone else, Adam being crumpled on the floor of the toilets would be around school by fifth period, but he didn’t really know what to expect with Lynch. He’d probably tell Gansey, and that would be hideously embarrassing, not least because Gansey would try so hard to pretend that it wasn’t.

Adam really didn’t want to miss class, but Ronan seemed characteristically unbothered. He shifted his grip to one of Adam’s arms and pulled, half-lifting and half-dragging him towards the door.

Two hallways rotating unsettlingly and one corridor that never seemed to end later, and Lynch dumped him onto the floor unceremoniously. The doors wavered and fidgeted across Adam’s vision like mirages, but he thought he could see the trophy case at the end of the hall, so he wasn’t anywhere near Calculus. Or the Nurse’s Office, which was where he’d momentarily believed Lynch was taking him.

Lynch thumped (literally, thumped… knocking was too civil a word for it) a nearby door and after a brief pause it swung open. There was a bit of murmuring - Adam couldn’t see who was inside - punctuated by Lynch’s low but persistently disrespectful drawl, and then someone was ejected into the hallway with a bit of protestation.

The door closed sharply.

‘Dammit, Lynch.’ Gansey’s voice complained. ‘Don’t do that. Some of us aren’t trying to offend the known universe.’

Adam didn’t hear the response, but Lynch said something, and a moment later Gansey’s legs appeared in front of him.

’What’s doing, men?’

‘He’s drunk.’ Lynch answered airily.

‘I’m not drunk.’ Adam argued, concentrating carefully on Gansey’s shoe, the only part of him that wasn’t nauseatingly unsteady. Curse Lynch for bringing Gansey into this. Now Gansey would think Adam was entirely incapable of looking after himself, and _it wasn’t true_.

‘What’s wrong?’

Adam didn’t answer, and Gansey looked around, probably at Ronan. There were a few moments of silence, and then Gansey sighed.

‘I shall handle this.’ He said decisively.

A short trip to the actual Nurse’s Office later, and Gansey was helping Adam into the Camaro. He’d offered up a concussion as explanation for Adam’s sudden-onset illness and insisted he required the restful atmosphere of home, something which, incredibly, the nurse accepted with very little persuasion.

Adam hadn’t said anything, and Gansey had made Lynch leave beforehand, in order to give a better impression.

Lynch was in the carpark, though, leaning against the side of the orange car, looking like every parent’s nightmare. He smirked at Gansey as they got closer.

‘She bought it then? Where I come from, they’d call you a pathological manipulator.’

‘Where anyone comes from, Ronan, they’d call you an asshole.’ Gansey grumbled.

Adam didn’t feel like he was exactly consenting to this underhanded school-break, but neither could he particularly complain. The only thing that didn’t make him feel weak and weird was sitting very still, closing his eyes, and trying not to think about anything, not normally behaviour considered conducive to an educational experience.

He managed to get into the back of the car and curl up discreetly, and he felt Gansey’s Camaro take off out of the carpark.


	9. In which a bird has more game than Ronan

Adam fell asleep on the sofa at Monmouth while Gansey pretended to study and watched him. He slept with one hand on his shoulder and the other on his elbow, a posture that struck Gansey as fundamentally defensive and childlike.

Ronan had gone into his room, apparently deciding he would not return to school, which, while unsurprising, made Gansey wonder why he’d bothered to make the effort in the first place.

Probably just to hear the outcome of the fight with Void.

His bedroom door was open to allow Chainsaw to explore the apartment, but Gansey couldn’t see or hear anything without venturing down the hallway, so he left the matter alone.

In many ways, Gansey suspected Adam and Ronan were probably quite similar, but he still wasn’t sure whether that made friendship between the two more or less possible (only ever possible, because friendship with either seemed to lie in the hinterlands of unlikeliness). Ronan’s vicious disregard for social convention and Adam’s cautious detachment from it seemed suspiciously reminiscent of the same deep-buried pain, although Gansey hadn’t made any progress in uncovering much of Adam’s history.

He knew as much about Ronan’s past as Ronan would allow, and no more.

Gansey considered himself capable of forgiving any demonstrations of Ronan’s blatant aversion to civility, social interaction, or even the law. At times Ronan was like a severed cable, dangerous, unstable, constantly threatening to electrocute things, and hypnotically powerful. Other times, Ronan was the friend who binge-watched shows on Netflix with Gansey when he couldn’t sleep, brought home Gansey’s favourite ice-cream unprompted, and talked to the pet bird he’d rescued as though she were a person.

Until Ronan, Gansey hadn’t thought it was possible to find someone as odd and strangely raw as himself. And eight months after Ronan, Cheng had gotten into the Pig and pulled a metal mask out of his bag, and Gansey had been speechless. The legendary Ironbee, one of the first nationally recognised superheroes, revealing himself voluntarily to Gansey?

A month or two after that, and Henry had invited him to an art gallery, where he’d confirmed that Ironbee had come into contact with the figures Gansey had only ever heard about through rumour and theory and obsessively detailed blog posts on rescues and interactions and brief snippets of blurry, shaky footage. The Gray Man, Pythia, Aegis, and Leech, a “witch” who was “devouring peoples’ life force like a psychic cannibal” (according to Cheng), were all legitimate forces to be feared in their suddenly all-too-small city.

Henry also said there were others, many others, some who didn’t wear masks and most who didn’t operate methodically (or ethically) enough to be recognised by the mainstream media. Gansey knew of many of these too, but with Ironbee’s superior tracking technology, Gansey’s capacity to isolate and categorise patterns of activity became significantly more effective, and therefore useful.

At some point during this exhibition, Gansey incurred the wrath of Blue, and within a few weeks, Gansey had been secured into the employ of the newly formed Veil coalition, between Pythia, Aegis and Ironbee, as well as a couple other cognitively enhanced members of Blue’s family and several skilled operatives who were either ex-CIA or ex-something-a-lot-more-secret.

At some point Ronan had walked into the Monmouth living room when they were discussing strategy against Leech and had snorted “superhero business” derisively and left again, much to Gansey’s confusion (and joy… keeping things from Ronan was a (pointless) nightmare).

After Leech had been destroyed, and Gansey had adjusted himself to a new way of life between the Veil and school and his obsession with Chimera, he started to notice Adam Parrish, the - unrelentingly clever and reserved - new kid in school. Gansey knew, with certainty, that Parrish was one of them, or at the very least, he ought to be.

Better to entice Parrish to the side of the angels, before he became a weapon of demons.

In that way, Gansey thought that Ronan and Adam would understand each other well, if they ever bothered to try.

 

 

 

Blue arrived a short while before Adam stirred, and Gansey sat by her as she sculpted.

‘The Widower, then?’ He asked, forcibly calm, fiddling with some clay.

Blue made a face. ‘It’s not as bad as you think.’

‘He’s a murderer, Jane.’ Gansey sighed, shaped a tiny, wonky model car with his clay. ‘This thing about Adam… I don’t know if it could make killing people forgivable.’

Blue shrugged, and Gansey wondered distractedly if his sense of morality was so old-fashioned as to be foolish. It was _wrong_ to kill people, wasn’t it? Not merely because the majesty of life demanded a certain amount of respect, but because the idea that one person could righteously decide the fate of another on a whim was baseless and anarchical.

‘But what distinguishes the Widower’s lack of compassion, and his capacity to kill without remorse from the same traits in someone like Kavinsky- _Void_?’

Blue hesitated, and her unusual expression of self-restraint made Gansey nervous.

‘You don’t think there could be people who deserve to die?’

‘I don’t think anyone else could objectively decide who deserves to die.’ He paused, and pretended to roll his small model car across the plastic sheet on the floor. ‘Do you?’

‘Maybe we aren’t designed to be morally infallible.’ Blue suggested, smoothing the circle of a shield with both hands. ‘Maybe we can’t expect people to be capable of that.’

‘If we don’t aim for a higher moral standard, then how could we ever expect to reach it?’

‘Who decides what the higher moral standard _is_ , Gansey?’

She glanced around at him, and her eyes flickered curiously to something over his shoulder.

Gansey turned to see Parrish sitting up on the couch, flushed with warmth and embarrassment.

Adam acknowledged them with a sheepish nod. ’What time is it?’

‘After six.’ Gansey said, straightening up immediately. ‘You have to stay for dinner. Should I call your brother?’

‘My… brother?’ Gansey watched a small, troubled crease appear between Parrish’s eyebrows.

‘Noah.’ Blue added affectionately, far enough away not to register Parrish’s confusion and Gansey’s surprise. The clouded uneasiness on Adam’s face slowly started to clear.

‘Noah.’ He repeated softly. ‘Yeah. I should call him.’

Gansey passed Adam his phone so he didn’t need to use the landline in the kitchen.

The conversation was brief and, on Adam’s end, entirely vague. He made no mention of leaving school early or being unwell, and tried to ignore Gansey’s attempts to yell through the phone, inviting Noah for dinner.

‘I’ll get Henry to pick him up.’ Gansey smiled in response Adam’s severe look.

He went to get Parrish a drink from the kitchen.

‘Gansey.’ Adam had followed him, fatigue still drawn in deep circles under his eyes. ‘I heard Void was gone.’

Gansey felt his eyes widen and tried to school his expression. He’d assumed Adam would refuse to admit any connection to the incident last night. And yet, how like Adam to defy expectation?

‘Gone?’

‘Dead.’ Parrish continued, toneless. ‘Someone mentioned it to me this morning. Pythia and the others. You were right.’ His head tipped slightly, eyes clear. He was searching for… something. Reassurance? He didn’t seem particularly uncertain.

‘Pythia…’ Gansey murmured softly. Adam was reporting what he knew, because he knew Gansey would want to know too.

‘I heard he was some Bulgarian mobster.’ Adam continued. Gansey thought he must have been exercising a lot of self-control to appear so blank-faced, further evidenced by his quiet acceptance of the soda Gansey handed him. ‘He was trying to strengthen the mob while usurping control of it.’

Gansey’s brain whirred into action reluctantly. Kavinsky was a Bulgarian mobster? More than possible, he supposed. Probable.

‘Did he do it?’ Gansey asked.

Adam didn’t answer straight away.

‘I heard he planned to kill his father and take his place, uniting the _mutri_ against the government.’ He said finally, sounding strained. ‘He would have burned the whole city down.’

Gansey wondered if Adam would come clean if he was pressed on the source of this information. Had Kavinsky admitted this to him? Or had Parrish figured it out on his own?

The silence hovered between them, and Gansey couldn’t tell if it was only him who felt the heaviness of unspoken secrets hanging in the air.

In the living room, Blue shouted something, which may have been “ _Lynch, don’t let that-_ “

Gansey hurried out, finding Ronan standing at the edge of the plastic zone and Blue with both arms thrown across her sculpture protectively. Chainsaw, mistaking Blue’s intense focus for evidence of food, had fluttered over to the sculpture, and Ronan was retrieving her with an accusing look.

‘It’s not her fault your fingers look like sausages.’ He commented rudely, and Gansey growled “ _Ronan_ ” at the same time as Blue threw a glob of clay at him, which bounced off his cheek and left a brown smear.

Ronan glared, but with Chainsaw in his hands made little move to respond. He stalked over and deposited her on the back of the sofa.

Adam, in the doorway slightly behind Gansey, made a quiet noise.

‘Is that… a crow?’

‘She’s a raven.’ Ronan corrected bluntly. ‘Her name is Chainsaw. Chainsaw, this is Dipshit. Dipshit, this is Chainsaw.’

‘Where did you get a raven?’ Adam asked, ignoring the insult.

Ronan shrugged.

Gansey didn’t even know exactly where he’d found her, or when. He was still as confused and affronted as when Ronan had produced her randomly in the kitchen one day for a feed.

‘What the hell, Ronan?’

‘Chainsaw.’ Ronan had nodded knowingly.

Gansey had muttered about Ronan being a hypocrite for telling him _he_ picked up strays, and exited.

Adam seemed dissatisfied with the shrug as an answer, but cautiously extended a hand. Chainsaw hopped from the sofa to his wrist and flapped her wings expressively, and Ronan scowled.

Gansey tried to silently repeat his previous plea with a glance at Ronan. _Be nice_.

Ronan’s answering expression wasn’t reassuring.

 

 

 

Given Parrish’s usual pragmatism, it was hard to tell if he was especially subdued or not as the evening progressed.

‘What happened to you?’ Blue asked kindly, moving around to face Gansey and Adam as they settled on the couch. ‘You hadn’t even moved since I got here.’

Chainsaw had made her way up Parrish’s arm and was poking through his hair curiously, as if expecting to find bugs or bits of food.

Adam looked sideways at Gansey, expression guarded. ‘Concussion.’ It was hard to pick as a statement or a question.

‘Lynch.’ Blue said immediately.

‘It wasn’t me.’ Ronan snapped resentfully, halfway into the kitchen, and Blue frowned at him.

Gansey wished they could just tell Adam the truth. The involvement with the Veil, and the demise of Kavinsky. He wanted to tell Adam they knew about the Widower, and that if Adam wanted, they could offer him protection. At the very least, he wanted to provide Adam with somewhere safer to live.

If the Widower was approaching Adam when he was alone, Gansey could ensure that he would never be alone again, especially not on the streets at night.

Yes, Blue believed he had good intentions, but how could good intentions ever be an incentive to murder? Murder came from some kind of innate misunderstanding of what was right and what was wrong and how life and death fit in with that. Gansey remained precariously uncomfortable with the knowledge that the Widower had killed Kavinsky in the course of a Veil-supported fight. No, he didn’t doubt Blue and Henry. Their commitment to the protection of the city’s population was not something he felt the need to question, but allowing the Widower to summarily execute someone without a trial was bound to open a can of ethical worms for the Veil.

A brisk rap on the door announced Henry, with a peculiarly forlorn Noah in tow.

Noah brightened marginally at the sight of Adam with a bird attached to his shoulder, and significantly more when he saw Blue.

Gansey called for Indian food, determined to ensure that Adam stayed safely confined in Monmouth with at least one superhero within yelling distance at any time, and watched Noah settle onto the plastic next to Blue. Ronan came out of the kitchen with a drink and a handful of raw chunks of meat. He leaned over the back of the couch and lured Chainsaw off Parrish’s shoulders and around the back of Gansey’s head.

Noah gasped from the floor. ‘You have a _raven_?’

Ronan, trying and failing to appear unmoved, coaxed Chainsaw onto his wrist and took him over to a rapturous Noah. Henry had gone straight to the desk in the corner and set about dissecting a broken laptop he’d salvaged from the scrapheap at school, which left Gansey and Adam to quietly observe them all.

Despite Gansey’s moral concerns, he felt pleasantly relaxed in his chosen company. Ronan was showing Noah the tricks he’d taught Chainsaw, with the subtle pride he wore when he was the truest version of himself. Blue was laughing and goading him with mud-slippery hands, her expression passionate and beautiful. Noah looked young and delighted. Henry, at the desk, was absorbed in his project with the laser focus of his genius. And Adam, next to Gansey, was intense and thoughtful. He was watching Noah, and by extension Blue and Ronan, and Gansey felt compelled to speak.

‘You and Noah live alone, don’t you?’

Adam’s answer was a nod, curt if Gansey hadn’t been prepared for it.

‘Perhaps you should move in with us.’ He offered tentatively. ‘You and Noah. You’d be closer to school.’

Adam didn’t answer. Gansey tried to detect if he was closing off, or just considering the proposal. He was still staring at Noah, as Ronan guided Chainsaw in a little explosive flutter and flap demonstration.

‘Ronan has brothers.’ Gansey explained softly. ‘Noah would be safe here. You both would.’

Adam visibly flinched, and Gansey felt distress throb through his chest like a wound.

He felt this way around Ronan sometimes, when Ronan was particularly fragile or incandescent with rage. It was a feeling he’d learned to despise.

‘I can’t.’ Adam said sharply. The words fell between him and Gansey like one of Blue’s forcefields, and even though Adam didn’t explain, Gansey recognised that the conversation was over.

On the other side of the living room, Noah cackled excitedly as Blue smeared clay sideburns on Ronan’s face. Ronan shouted curses and flicked clay into her hair. Even Henry looked up, amused by their antics.

So softly Gansey almost missed it, Adam curled his hands into fists on his knees, and murmured. ‘Why do you think people with powers are so interesting?’

If it were anyone else, Gansey might have perceived an insulting note to his tone, but Adam seemed entirely serious. He paused, tapping his lower lip, and tried to gather his thoughts.

Adam continued, voice low and puzzled. ‘Do you think they’re… _more_? More than humans are? Better?’

Gansey decided Adam was thinking in very abstract, value-judgement terms, and he shrugged uncertainly.

‘I don’t know if that’s quantifiable.’

‘Chimera.’ Adam said, and despite his hushed voice Gansey felt a familiar thrill of fascination and fear. He immediately added; ‘I’m sorry. But what did it feel like to see him- before everything?’

‘Like… awe.’ Gansey admitted, losing his own voice to a whisper. ‘Like the presence of something divine. And then… terror. I guess. But almost the same feeling.’

He hesitated, watching Adam scratch the knee of his school slacks absently. ‘What does it feel like with the Widower?’

Every time Gansey mentioned the vigilante he knew he was leaving himself (Blue and Henry, too) open to Adam’s suspicions, but he couldn’t help it. The idea that Adam would allow the Widower into his life frightened Gansey more than accidentally revealing that he was involved with the Veil.

Adam shook his head slowly.

‘I don’t know. Like… like it’s easy. Like it’s fine.’ He shook his head more vigorously, like he was attempting to dispel his own confusion.

Gansey frowned. ‘So you trust him?’

Adam looked up at him, strangely delicate features momentarily caught in an expression of surprise. He mumbled; ‘I don’t-’

The downstairs buzzer went off, and Gansey started, but by the time he’d turned back Adam’s face was shadowed and unreadable.

Gansey only managed to convince Adam to stay in the guest room that night because Noah fell asleep in the armchair. Ronan was quietly but furiously fuming about it - Gansey hadn’t come close to convincing him that Adam moving in was a good idea - and within an hour of dinner he’d barricaded himself in his room.

He left Chainsaw out, in the company of Noah and Adam, at least. Blue sat next to Gansey on the couch and they watched movies with Adam and Henry until the latter had to leave.

 

 

 

Gansey drove Adam to school the next day. Between the huge stretches of sleep and the mountains of curry and rice he’d consumed over the previous twenty-four hours, Adam was actually starting to feel close to normal. He still swallowed convulsively when a heavy black car pulled by them in the carpark, and twitched when someone shoved past him going up the stairs, but Gansey was reassuringly close for most of the day, and none of the teachers seemed to detect his lack of focus.

Gansey drove him home after school, tapping his fingers on the dashboard at every red light.

Adam hadn’t permitted himself the contemplation of Gansey’s offer last night, or the quiet conversation afterwards. There was no possibility of living at Monmouth. He couldn’t afford it, and God forbid his father came back to an empty apartment.

And the Widower…

Adam felt the kind of anxiety about that line of thought that someone else might have felt at the prospect of an exam or a job interview.

Staring out the Camaro’s passenger window as familiarly decrepit streets and buildings flickered past, he reminded himself that dealings with the Widower were never a matter of trust, but a matter of obligation.

The vigilante’s anger after the fight with Void surely signalled the end of their interactions. Although Adam couldn’t recall it well, he had supposedly been rescued from danger by Ironbee, a member of the Veil, to which the Widower did not belong.

He hadn’t exactly had the details of the battle described to him, but he knew the energy convertor design (or at least, the concept) had been applied somehow.

So, technically, Ironbee and the Veil had freed him from Kavinsky, and Adam’s ideas had played some role (no doubt tiny) in the outcome of the fight.

Perhaps he owed nothing to the Widower now. Perhaps the Widower was merely angry because he had to ally himself with the Veil against Void, and Adam’s part in the whole situation was basically irrelevant.

Adam couldn’t exactly pinpoint the source of his unease about the Widower. If their association could optimistically be considered finished, Adam wasn’t sure why Gansey’s question about his feelings had been so unsettling, (possibly even more so than the altogether-too-perceptive comment about Noah and him being “safe”).

It might have been one of those problems best left buried, but unresolved matters always struck Adam as the ones most likely to trip him up in future struggles for survival, so he nervously allowed his mind to return to the issue. Gansey pulled up in the street outside Adam’s apartment block, and closely watched him climb out of the car.

‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow.’ He said firmly, and then nudged the engine over the sound of Adam’s protest.

Noah must have made his own way back from Monmouth, Adam realised… unless he still hadn’t left.

He was besotted with Blue’s art and Lynch’s raven, and even Adam couldn’t deny the entrancing mood of Gansey’s apartment, a world apart from the harsh drudgery of his own dingy shoebox apartment and the grim, unromantic streets of their neighbourhood.

Adam climbed the stairs inside in a haze, trying to methodically recollect and order the memories of the past couple of days, and used the spare key to open the apartment door.

Whoever the Veil had sent him home with the other night had simply picked the lock, and Adam had been sufficiently unnerved by the speed of his intrusion to consider getting a deadbolt.

Noah wasn’t in, and Adam wondered if he really was still playing with Chainsaw, and, as Lynch hadn’t bothered to go to school that morning, or even emerge from his sealed room, whether the two of them had been mucking around at Monmouth the whole day.

Adam pushed open his bedroom door, and couldn’t help a violent flinch at the shadow falling across the floor from the window.

At first he thought it was a person - the Widower, obviously - but when he recovered his wits he realised it was too small and immobile.

He edged forward, gingerly slid open the window, and with considerable amount of effort detached the object from the outside of the glass.

It was his backpack… sticky and disgusting from the weblike substance used to glue it to the window, but with all of the contents as neatly and correctly packed as when he’d left school two days earlier. His keys and wallet were still in the safe pocket against the inside of the bag.

Adam was too pleased to have his books back to worry about where this left his balance of power with the Widower.


	10. Fuel station etiquette and LEGO Batman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say every comment has been such a gift, thank you all so much, it makes writing and posting heaps more exciting and rewarding.  
> If you haven't seen LEGO Batman, watch it, it's the bomb. Annnnnd the next couple-ish chapters are kinda one large split chapter, be warned.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks after the Void incident that Adam encountered the Widower again.

The collapse of Kavinsky’s scheme had left the city’s criminal element unruly and out of control. The gas station adjoining Adam’s work had been robbed three times, two people had been shot in an armed bank robbery a block away on Thursday and someone from the D.A.’s office had been firebombed in his house the night before.

The Veil (the name Gansey had attributed to the organisation which had rescued Adam) had been out with a vengeance, but there had been dozens of other attacks, and numerous other casualties.

Gansey drove Adam to and from school every day, and brought him back to Monmouth every afternoon he wasn’t working. Despite Adam’s initial reluctance, even he had to admit that it was becoming difficult to get around the city without encountering someone who seemed ready to kill him.

The supermarket had started rostering extra security and only permitting staff to leave in pairs or groups. There was a rumour going around that they were going to start closing at seven pm, which by any calculation would cut Adam’s income by at least 40%. Admittedly, Adam was less likely to end up dead… but he was also less likely to have an apartment, or food.

Gansey hadn’t dropped the matter of Adam moving in to Monmouth, and he’d brought it up at some point to Noah, who was now obsessed with the idea. Noah was at Monmouth even more than Adam, hanging out with Blue and being significantly too friendly with Lynch for Adam’s comfort.

At Monmouth, Adam talked to Gansey about the superheroes of the past and the fate of the city, deconstructed junk and built robots with Henry, and studied alongside Blue while she drew or painted. Lynch tended to disappear whenever Adam was present, unless Noah convinced him to stay. It was difficult to tell if his dematerialisation was related to Adam, or if he was equally scarce every day of the week.

On a Thursday night, Adam left work in the company of the assistant manager, Michael Riccio. It had been a source of some debate at the shift-allocation staff meeting as to whether Adam could be considered strong or masculine enough to escort one of the female staff members home. Several of his coworkers refused to contemplate the idea of him having to defend them in a confrontation, and Riccio himself had loudly asserted that Adam was “a kid” and “too skinny for a good fistfight”.

Without deeming Adam’s input consequential, the others had resolved that he required someone more menacing to accompany him most of the way back to his apartment, so with Riccio he was stuck.

They cut across to the gas station so Ric could get cigarettes, and Adam wondered if the dead guy the police had found hanging upside down from an overpass that morning had anything to do with the Widower. There’d been no suggestion he’d been doing anything illegal., but the news report had alleged the victim was a “person of interest in recent criminal activity” in the area.

Riccio slapped Adam’s shoulder suddenly and pushed him out the door, embarrassingly quick to light up before they’d even cleared the fuel pumps.

‘Fuckin’ Healey made me re-order all the canned shit by date.’ He announced, bitter and pleased at the opportunity to complain about it. Adam was the witness of many workplace grouches and tantrums, apparently because he was guaranteed never to repeat gripes and insults to anyone else. He tried shrugging sympathetically, and Riccio seemed to approve. ‘Like he thinks we’re gonna forget to sell it before it goes off in eight years.’ He snorted, inadvertently stepping into the path of a car pulling into the station. When it skidded to a stop barely a foot from his leg he thumped the bonnet aggressively.

‘Dickhead!’

Adam took a step sideways, subtly attempting to disassociate himself from his coworker, and watched the passenger’s window roll down. A shaggy unkempt head emerged, along with a tirade of spectacular abuse. Riccio pulled himself up to his full height, and Adam drew further away, suddenly very aware of the tinted windows and lopsided number plate. He was somewhat pinned between the ice cooler and the wall, and he couldn’t get out along the driveway without getting closer to the car.

The shaggy head withdrew, and through the passenger’s window came the short metallic barrel of a sawn-off shotgun. Riccio rapidly deflated, and Adam pressed back against the wall.

The back doors of the vehicle jerked open, expelling two large figures in balaclavas. Riccio took a few steps back, raising both hands and stammering an excuse. Adam tried and struggled to identify a course of intervention which wouldn’t get him killed.

The two men bypassed Riccio without a glance, but the passenger was clambering out, waving the gun and spouting more coarse, heavily-accented threats than Adam could understand.

As Ric took another step back, dropping his cigarette in favour of placating hand gestures, the passenger levelled the gun at his chest and shouted, and the siren in the shop behind them started to wail.

Someone dropped onto the roof of the car. The gun in the hands of the passenger was snagged backwards, smacking him in the forehead, and the driver’s door was flung open, only to be jerked closed again with another line of web.

Adam took a deep, uneven breath of relief.

The masked figures bolted back out from the shop, and with a sharp flick of a web the Widower flung Riccio out of their path. Adam heard a gunshot and flinched instinctively, but the Widower was flipping forward off the car as the shell ripped a hole through the roof. He slammed feet first into the passenger, still reeling from the impact of the gun, and jumped between the two other robbers. Both of them spun to follow him, and Adam curled tighter to the wall as the driver crashed out of the passenger door, lifting his gun for another shot at the Widower.

One web seized the man on the Widower’s left and flung him into a fuel pump, where he was immediately pinned by a series of smaller webs. The driver fired another shot, and the Widower ducked underneath, movements almost to rapid to follow, webbed his feet and dragged his legs out from underneath him.

Adam watched him slide past the front wheel, cursing, as the Widower used his other hand to fire a web into the face of the still standing robber on his right.

A sharp drag on the web attached to the driver pulled him close enough for the Widower to kick the shotgun out of his grip, then he fired the web at the fuel pump canopy and the driver flipped into the air and hung, dangling upside down several feet off the ground.

The figure on the right, wrestling with the web over his balaclava and face, the Widower pinned to the glass window of the station, and with one final flourish he stuck the disoriented (but still cussing) passenger to the bumper of the car.

The shop siren was still howling, although Adam wasn’t certain the police would even be able to respond with their current level of preoccupation across the city. He pushed away from the wall carefully, and watched the Widower pick up a black duffel bag and dropkick it rather cheerfully at the shop door, behind which an unattractive and excessively nervous looking attendant hovered and stared at him.

Adam stepped forward, skirting the open car door.

‘You have good timing.’ He noted, forcing his voice to be calm, even as his heart struggled to return to a regular speed.

The Widower twisted to face him and gave a mock salute. ‘Yours is shithouse. This is what? The fourth time I’ve had to save your weedy ass? Hey man, shut the fuck up-’ With this remark he fired a web at the mouth of the passenger, sticking it shut.

Adam made an uncivilised noise of disdain. ‘Ha. Not even close.’

Michael Riccio was slowly, unsteadily clambering to his feet on the other side of the station.

‘Hey, dude, that was fucking insane.’ He commented dazedly. ‘Holy shit.’

The Widower tipped his head at Riccio. Adam got the sense that it was a severely unimpressed look. Riccio, oblivious, shakily lit another cigarette. Adam turned to navigate around the other side of the car, unenthused at the prospect of being blown up by Ric’s nicotine addiction.

From a safe distance Adam observed the Widower dismantling the shotguns with sheer strength.

‘You right, bro?’ Riccio asked, still smoking heavily. ‘I mean, you good?’

‘I’m good.’ Adam answered, correctly interpreting Riccio’s tone as a cessation of responsibility. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

He made it across the road before the Widower landed next to him.

‘Does knucklehead realise that whole place is flammable?’

Adam shook his head gently. ‘I doubt it’s occurred to him.’

‘Right.’ The Widower sighed. ‘Should’ve let them shoot him.’

Adam turned down the next street, and the Widower kept pace with him. There were fewer people out this late nowadays, and those who were around had no interest in acknowledging any masked individuals in their midst, so they walked undisturbed.

Adam couldn’t resist the flush of relief that crawled up from somewhere in his stomach. He’d assumed the Widower was still pissed, or at the very least, disinterested. But he’d showed up exactly when Adam had needed him, again, and he didn’t seem angry.

Adam tried not to sound overly eager when he spoke.

‘I built something. A…’ He couldn’t think of a description. ‘It might be helpful.’

’Right.’ The robotic voice sounded dry, but the Widower didn’t falter. It felt odd walking next to him, like Adam was taking an extremely tall child to a costume party. He had the unnerving desire to look sideways at him, and the overwhelming sensation that to do so would be distinctly too familiar, given how tight the suit was and how long it had been since they’d last spoken.

The Widower didn’t share his hesitation, glancing across at the side of Adam’s head. ‘What?’

‘Hm?’

‘Built what?’

‘A scanner. Sort of. It’s a… sort of a cannibalised police radio, attached to a log monitor.’

‘Huh.’ The Widower paused, and Adam concentrated hard on not trying to read into the silence. ‘Speech recognition software?’

‘Partially.’ Adam frowned. ‘Mostly just for recording and indexing codes, dates, and locations. It’s designed to cross-reference keywords and log related reports and sources.’

‘Does it work?’

‘Theoretically.’ Adam’s frown deepened. ‘I haven’t had the opportunity to determine how accurate the results are.’

They were a couple of streets away from Adam’s building.

‘You want me to test it?’ There was something sly about the way the Widower asked that made Adam’s skin prickle, like a simple yes or no answer was going to tell him more than Adam would realise.

He swallowed. ‘Yes.’

‘How often does it work?’

Adam huffed a ready breath. ‘Nowadays? Constantly. There’s an update every two minutes. Every eight on a quiet afternoon.’

‘Huh.’ The vigilante repeated. Without any warning his hand gripped the back of Adam’s arm, startling him, but not tight enough to be threatening. He sped up, propelling Adam forwards.

‘Police?’

’Nope. Roof access?’

‘Yeah. I mean, I have a-’

Adam felt the Widower sling an arm around his waist at the same time as he heard a car backfire a couple of streets over. It only took a second to understand that it meant trouble, and then his feet left the ground and he yelped: ‘- _key_.’

The urge to twist sideways and wrap his limbs around the Widower almost overcame him, but he managed to battle it down with timely curiosity about the way some of the Widower’s webs seemed to have an elasticity which contracted in order to give him forward and upward momentum, while others remained a consistent length. It was hard to imagine he could have replicated an amino acid based biomaterial and retained the option of synthesising features in the field, but Adam was aware that there was no publicly known para-aramid which resembled the tensile strength and flexibility of the Widower’s webs.

They were high, really fucking high, and Adam saw the streetlights zooming away from him, flames and flashing lights in the distance and small figures the size of ants on the streets below, and then the Widower landed and Adam flopped to the ground like a rag doll, wheezing unattractively.

‘Oh god.’

‘Jesus, calm down.’

‘Oh god. Why? What did I do to you?’

‘You’re scared of heights.’ The Widower observed derisively.

‘Death.’ Adam corrected, still lying on the grimy gravel. ‘Plunging to my death.’

‘Maybe you should have mentioned that, loser.’

Adam sat up, incensed, and promptly lay back down again. ‘I didn’t think you’d make a habit of swinging me on top of buildings.’

There was no reply, and Adam glanced over at the Widower, who’d silently moved to the edge of the roof and was looking down.

‘I can put you back.’ He suggested coolly. ‘But you won’t enjoy it.’

‘Please, god, no.’

‘Go inside.’ The Widower advised bluntly. ‘Lock your doors and windows.’

‘What’s happening down there?’ Adam asked warily, sitting up.

‘Another night in paradise.’ The Widower stepped off the roof and vanished into darkness before Adam even had a chance to blink in horror.

 

 

 

Adam had studied until two and fallen asleep at his desk. The distant sound of gunfire and sirens kept him awake for a while, then silence and nerves. He didn’t really expect the Widower to come back, but it was too much of a risk to sleep in case he returned injured.

He slipped on the stairs in the morning, but it was difficult to say whether it was fatigue or haste. Gansey would be picking him up, and it was a ideal time to tell him the Widower was back.

Adam was still cautious about admitting the extent of his association with the Widower. For one thing, deaths were still being attributed to the vigilante, and if Adam wasn’t deluding himself, it seemed to be a one-man hunt for the whole criminal population of the city. Gansey couldn’t stomach the Widower’s propensity to kill, even though he had exacted respectful acknowledgement of his role in the fight with Void alongside Pythia’s heroes.

But Gansey, nevertheless, would be thrilled that Adam had more hero news.

Adam skidded out onto the pavement (overcast sky, everything damp… winter was coming) and stopped.

Normally, Gansey would have parked somewhere along the street, or if he was late, he would have pulled up in the road and waved for Adam to scramble in.

But the Pig (Gansey’s pet name for his car) wasn’t anywhere in sight, and thirty feet away, illegally wedged across a driveway to the neighbouring building’s underground garage, was Lynch’s silver BMW.

Adam, distantly, understood what he was supposed to do.

But he couldn’t bring himself to move.

Finally, the driver’s window rolled down and Lynch stuck his elbow onto the sill.

‘Get in the fucking car, Parrish.’

Adam got in the car. He pulled the door closed and asked; ‘Where’s Gansey?’

Lynch didn’t answer straight away, throwing the car into reverse and skidding back onto the road so quickly Adam clutched the door.

‘Out of town.’

Adam had gradually categorised Lynch as sort of a non-aggressor by proxy. Whether or not Lynch could actually tolerate him (in itself somewhat hard to determine, because Lynch appeared to be friends with Blue despite their constant arguments), between the efforts of Noah and Gansey he’d obviously been grudgingly accepted as some kind of ornament at Monmouth.

But being stuck alone in a car with Lynch, who was already glaring out the windscreen with his jaw set like a prize fighter, was a stretch.

Adam figured Gansey had gone to visit his family again. He must have called last night while Adam had been at work. So he’d sent Lynch to babysit? Adam was almost fuming at this lack of faith in his capacity to take care of himself, but the car unexpectedly slid to a stop and he looked up.

Where Adam’s street had previously continued past high-rise apartment blocks, old brownstones and sketchy convenience stores/amateur chemists, there was a yellow and red blockade and a small army of people in high-visibility workwear.

Adam sat forward, but Lynch must have passed it on his way over, because he was waiting impassively to turn into the narrow alley serving as a bypass route.

It was impossible to see very much past the blockade, but it looked like something had ripped straight through the surface of the road, churning out chunks of bitumen.

Through a gap in the concrete barricade, Adam thought he could see something green and silver protruding from the tear in the street.

He jumped slightly when Lynch’s phone rang, and tried to smother his laughter. The screen said “GANSEY” in capitals, but the tone was Who’s The (Bat)Man? and Adam couldn’t handle it.

He looked pointedly out the passenger window and covered his mouth.

Lynch didn’t pick up the phone, but he didn’t turn it off either, so the song played on until it rang out, and then started up again. Lynch turned into the alley, still ignoring the phone, and after a moment it pinged. Adam glanced sideways, reflexively registering the _“Adam, pick up the-”_ that flashed across the screen before it went dark.

Adam stared at it until it started to ring again, and then he glanced at Lynch, who continued to ignore him. With a thumb and forefinger Adam gingerly picked up the phone. It looked more expensive than his fridge.

‘Hello?’

‘Adam! Good morning! I tried- I had to leave, and I couldn’t- Are you at school?’

‘No. Not… yet.’ Lynch took a sharp corner back onto a main street and Adam pressed against his seat instinctively.

‘Okay, you’re on your way? There’s this- thing… that’s come up. I had to- Oh, and Henry’s come to help, so- but Jane and Ronan are still around to-’

Adam had never heard Gansey sound flustered, but it also sounded like he was in the middle of an airport, with people bustling and calling out in the background and machines beeping and clattering.

‘- _that one, the small one_ -’ Gansey said to someone else. ‘Adam, I’ve got to go. Tell Ronan to pick up his phone later, please.’

‘Okay…’

Gansey hung up. Adam glanced across at Lynch again, and put the phone down. He didn’t think he wanted to tell Lynch to do anything, actually.

He wondered what had happened in the other street, and whether it had been responsible for the Widower’s disappearing act last night.

The rest of the drive passed in silence. Adam thought about spending the day alone at Aglionby, the first time in more than two weeks. He didn’t mind too much. Before days filled with Gansey’s excitement and Henry’s inventiveness (he’d constructed a catapult at lunch one day in a matter of minutes), Adam had been appreciative of the calming bouts of silence throughout his day when he was alone.

Lynch squealed into the school carpark, narrowly missing several students walking past. One, a tall boy who Adam vaguely recognised from computer science, shouted, but was hurriedly pulled back by his female companion.

The power of being Ronan Lynch, he supposed, was being scary enough to do whatever you wanted.

Lynch parked crudely (this seemed intentional rather than merely lazy) and Adam got out, keen to avoid aggravating him further.

‘Thank you.’ He leaned down to speak politely through the window, and found Lynch still motionless in his seat. His hands were curled so tight around the steering wheel it looked like he could have broken it, and he was staring grimly at a fixed point out of the windscreen.

Adam hesitated, and stood up. Then he ducked again. ‘Are you coming?’

It was a stupid question. But Lynch was Gansey’s friend, so he felt obliged to make at least a small effort. And Adam hadn’t failed to notice that Lynch was in his uniform, even if it was worn as haphazardly as humanly possible.

Lynch snapped:‘No.’ He let his arms go slack and dropped his forehead to the top of the steering wheel.

Adam was distinctly bemused in the face of this tantrum. Lynch was clearly upset, in excess of his usual distaste for school or any kind of social interaction. Admittedly, Lynch hadn’t been at school more than once a week recently, but he’d been as disparagingly aloof as usual, loitering in the halls and sneering at anxious teachers.

The only difference was that Gansey wasn’t here, and Adam realised abruptly that Lynch wouldn’t cope without him.

The only problem was that Lynch hadn’t already left, and he was wearing school-appropriate attire (if not school-appropriately), which suggested that he was either going to force himself to come in eventually or he was just going to sit in the car and brood about it for an indeterminate length of time.

Adam pressed his lips together, straightened up, and then leaned back down.

‘Are you coming?’ He repeated bluntly, and when Lynch didn’t answer, he added sharply; ‘ _Ronan_.’

Lynch kicked his door open with enough force to rock the whole car, and Adam pulled back to avoid getting stuck as the window rolled up.

Ronan stood up, shot Adam a withering glare over the roof of the car, and slammed his door.

Then he opened it and slammed it again, just for emphasis.

Adam answered with rash scorn. ‘Right.’


	11. Perks of hanging with the cool/rich/existentially defeatist kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, this is less refined because I'm having emotions but I wanted to update.  
> Story progression is coming, answers are coming... I hope.  
> Let me know if you spot any typos or inconsistencies.

Lynch was in four of Adam’s six classes, though Adam didn’t know if he was meant to be in either of the other two and simply didn’t show.

Adam started to suspect Gansey had forced him to stay nearby for the whole day, which was unusually paranoid even for Gansey, and would have been uncharacteristically compliant of Lynch.

When they made it into Chemistry, Ronan coldly told Adam’s usual partner, Christina, to fuck off (much to her chagrin) and promptly slumped over the table. He was actually less in Adam’s way than Chris, which was a relief, because everyone else in the room started looking at Adam like he was going to be the victim of a particularly gruesome laboratory accident if he made the mistake of disturbing Lynch.

Adam was starting to feel almost sympathetic.

He hadn’t thought a day of school without Gansey would be particularly difficult, but it actually went a long way in heightening the tedium. Gansey’s presence brought a myriad of small entertainments during the day, from unspoken jokes about the teachers, students or material, to oddly decontextualised anecdotes about his childhood, to a companionable disgust upon receiving assignments. Adam missed the self-conscious way he mentioned Blue, and the uninhibited way he talked about everything else that interested him.

Having Lynch as company did have benefits. Aglionby was as private a school as it could get, and Adam had quickly worked out in his first couple of weeks that that meant money was substantially more relevant to administration than results were. As a particularly wealthy student, Lynch seemed to have free reign to behave however he wanted, but unlike others, he was unconcerned about potential social consequences. Lynch’s antagonism extended beyond petty pranks into delinquent territory, and everyone, including the teachers, steered clear of him.

With Lynch anywhere near him throughout the day, Adam found he was neither called upon or even directly acknowledged by most people, which was embarrassingly enjoyable.

The girl in front of Adam leaned back to give him two project sheets and quickly turned away, and Adam gently dropped Lynch’s next to his ear.

‘Blow something up.’ Lynch demanded, muffled by the bench top and his shirt sleeve.

‘Maybe later.’ Adam replied quietly. ‘Henry would want to be here.’

Lynch snorted insultingly.

‘Gansey won’t let you.’ He grunted. ‘Have to do it while he’s gone.’ He half-sat up, grabbing Adam’s pen, and scrawled something on his own project sheet. Adam read over his arm, permitting an amused noise when he realised Ronan was writing a recipe for a thermite bomb.

‘Submit that.’ He instructed disdainfully, and sank back onto his arms.

Adam sighed. ‘Why’d you bother coming?’

‘Mutual suffering.’ Lynch said bitterly, and Adam didn’t know if it was a joke or not. ‘Damn Gansey.’

Adam didn’t fully understand what he meant. ‘Isn’t he with his family?’

Ronan answered; ‘Ha!’

Adam reclaimed his pen and re-read the project instructions. He could do this alone, no problem. It’d be easier than negotiating with Christina.

He was still turning over the phrase “mutual suffering” when he’d finished blending sodium hydroxide with an acid, and carefully mixed in sodium chloride. It still seemed strange to have Lynch pick him up and bring him to school, and even though Gansey was nice, he wasn’t so nice that letting Adam catch the bus to school for one day would be unbearable to his conscience. Gansey, apparently, sincerely doubted that Adam could avoid getting into trouble if he was on his own. Although that was be a fair opinion in light of Adam’s repeated encounters with the criminal faction of the city, it wasn’t as if Gansey knew about every incident. And even if he did, there was no need to think that Adam wouldn’t survive a day in school. The only possible threat to him at Aglionby had been Kavinsky, and Kavinsky was dead, and Gansey hadn’t even _known_ -

Adam froze, a flask of water raised tremulously above his formula.

Gansey _knew_. Gansey knew _everything_.

Gansey knew that Kavinsky had been Void, and that the Veil were going to confront him, and that the Widower was going to work with them in order to win.

He must have a contact within the organisation, if he wasn’t directly involved himself…

God, of course. Gansey’s fascination and careful research of powers must be because he was working with the Veil- or he was one of them.

_Gansey? Powered?_

Adam wasn’t sure if the room had gone quiet or if he just couldn’t hear anything anymore. Next to him, Lynch shifted slightly.

Gansey might know perfectly well who the Veil heroes were. Oh, Christ…

 _Henry_.

When Adam had woken up after Kavinsky had tried to kill him, that armoured figure had been carrying him, something achingly bright and golden.

He knew afterwards that it must have been Ironbee, the city’s most popular superhero. But he’d never considered the possibility that it might have been _Henry_.

Adam felt something hit his elbow suddenly, and the flask flipped out of his hand. As he scrabbled to catch it the water splashed into his formula, and the whole mass exploded into a sea of white fluff overflowing from the beaker and spreading erratically across the bench.

Lynch sniggered, hand still poised where he’d struck Adam’s arm.

Adam looked at him - stared at him - and Ronan lifted an eyebrow in mock challenge.

Maybe it wasn’t Henry.

After all, Henry was only Adam’s age. How could someone in high school be saving the city and getting Henry Cheng’s grades?

Maybe Adam was overreacting. Gansey didn’t necessarily know the Veil. Or the heroes. He did a lot of research. Maybe he was just genuinely worried that Adam might die on the streets out there. Maybe Lynch had only come to school because he had nobody to annoy at home.

Adam moved to try and clean up the mess, feeling uncertain and wounded at the idea of Gansey hiding things from him. Lynch “helped” by nudging at one edge of the expanding mass with his sleeve.

The teacher nodded faintly at Adam but failed to make any comment at all, which he attributed to Lynch’s semi-prone form at the desk.

At break, Lynch made the curious decision to mutely drag Adam into the auditorium. The room was cavernous and completely dark, and Adam was 90% sure that Ronan had picked the lock or broken it in order to get access. He lay across five chairs (Lynch had absurdly long legs) and ate Twizzlers.

Adam sat in the row behind him and read in the rubbish light. It was gloriously quiet, and Adam found it possible, if not easy, to focus on something other than Gansey’s questionable omniscience.

 

 

 

The calm didn’t last for long. By lunch Adam was being consumed by suspicion, and when he tracked Lynch down (in the auditorium, and completely disinterested in Adam’s arrival), he settled on a chair and cleared his throat.

Lynch didn’t answer, but he moved, and something hit Adam in the chest lightly and fell into his lap.

It was a large chocolate bar, and Adam was momentarily so stunned he forgot his uneasiness.

The only time he ever had chocolate these days was when something melted at the supermarket and they couldn’t sell it.

This wasn’t melted. Adam tried not to frown as he lifted it up.

‘You dropped this.’ He commented tactfully.

Lynch lifted a hand above the line of the seats, holding another equally massive bar of chocolate, and didn’t answer.

Adam considered what degree of patheticness would describe how badly he wanted to eat the chocolate, then he remembered Lynch sabotaging his chemistry experiment and pulled the wrapper open.

He wondered how Lynch managed to stay so fit when his diet seemed to consist of nothing but candy and alcohol.

‘Lynch.’ Adam fought an instinctive desire to eat in inoffensive silence. ‘Why is Gansey here?’

A moment passed, and Lynch slowly sat up. His features were even more distinctive and intimidating in the dark, like he could easily belong to a different class of entity altogether, something beyond the human realm.

‘He didn’t tell you?’ Lynch sounded gruffly surprised, but Adam couldn’t see his expression clearly.

Adam nodded slightly, thoughtfully. ‘Chimera.’

Ronan slouched over the back of one of his chairs, arms so long his fingertips brushed the floor near Adam’s shoe. ‘Yeah.’

‘Gansey thinks he survived.’ Adam pondered slowly.

Ronan scoffed. ‘Gansey thinks _he_ wasn’t _it_. And yeah, that _he’s_ here.’

‘Here.’ Adam repeated. When Chimera had wigged out and decimated people at the senatorial committee in Washington, the army had supposedly sent in a helicopter and blown him out of existence.

But Gansey had said… what? “ _He fought it and he won_ ” and “ _it didn’t happen how they said._ ” So Gansey was here looking for Chimera.

Because the city was a hotbed of illegal scientific exploration and black market goods, this was where an embattled vigilante _would_ best be able to hide.

Adam took another bite of chocolate and thought about this. It wasn’t as though it resolved the question of how deeply Gansey was involved in the Veil situation.

Lynch said shortly; ‘What?’

Adam glanced at him curiously.

‘Your face.’ Ronan snapped dismissively. ‘What?’

‘What would he do if he found him?’ Adam asked.

Lynch laughed, a low, harsh sound. ‘Combust with excitement?’ The laugh cut off. ‘He won’t find anything.’

He sounded more bitter than mocking, and Adam wondered if it was because Chimera occupied more of Gansey’s attention than anything else, or because Gansey’s search for him was foolishly dangerous.

If there was only one thing in the world that could frighten Ronan Lynch, it would be losing Gansey.

Adam still didn’t know what Gansey might know, and he didn’t think he could convince Lynch to reveal anything Gansey hadn’t already explained. He frowned, watching Ronan finish his chocolate and lick his fingers. Lynch looked like he could easily be the villain from an old black and white vampire movie, all angles and menacingly precise movements. 

Adam wondered why _he_ was here, in this city. Lynch didn’t usually come to school, so it wasn’t an educational matter. It wasn’t like he didn’t have the money to move somewhere nicer. Gansey said he had brothers, but it didn’t seem like they were living nearby, or he just chose not to visit family. Maybe they’d just left him behind…

Like Adam’s father.

But Adam, at least, had Noah.

 

 

 

Parrish had something on his mind. Ronan didn’t know what, and he wasn’t prepared to ask, but he noticed. He noticed Parrish’s distraction in Chemistry, and Parrish’s odd curiosity about Gansey at lunch, and Parrish’s quiet preoccupation in Calculus at the end of the day.

Not only did Ronan notice, but it was all he could do. He concentrated on Adam, fighting off the uneasiness that dug under his skin and bit at his nerves. He watched Adam’s hands, disproportionate to his narrow wrists, startlingly precise in motion. The backs of his wrists to his elbows were dotted with freckles, and his nails were pale and even, characteristically neat.

His shoulders didn’t sit as wide or flat as Ronan’s. Parrish was more fine-boned, more… delicate wasn’t the word. He was just more. _More_ , like Ronan could just look at him and feel outdone by him. Undone by him.

Aglionby was pushing him to the edge. He walked around corners and pushed open doors and saw Kavinsky in the shadows.

He caught glimpses of the skull mask out of the corner of his eye. He saw Kavinsky’s grin, heard his laughter. He felt a hand on his shoulder, on his neck.

He didn’t like going to the bathroom, because every cubicle seemed to be hiding something, something Ronan was afraid to see.

He sat next to Parrish in every class so he could watch him discreetly and ignore the reflected, rotting faces in the window.

He took Parrish to the auditorium at break because there were more monsters than ever hiding in the darkened rows of seats.

At lunch he bought an extra chocolate bar because a primitive instinct in his mind assured him he could bribe Parrish into staying close.

Parrish had something on his mind. Ronan wondered if it was better or worse than what haunted his own conscience.

Between the presence of Henry, and Gansey’s protectiveness, Ronan had been able to avoid going to school. But with Gansey off on Veil business (and Henry serving as field operative), Adam would have been stuck at school alone, and even without Gansey expressing his concerns about Parrish’s wellbeing on a thrice-daily basis, the idea still would have bothered Ronan.

Finding Parrish slumped on the floor of the bathroom had produced a kind of constricting horror which Ronan hadn’t been able to shake off since, and avoiding Parrish had for a time been the only conceivable option. Ronan had a twisted compulsion to redeem himself, a desire to confess that was grimly reminiscent of early years in church, at the time shrouded in quiet, dreamlike spirituality and nowadays more closely associated with the bitter misery of funerals and ineffective counselling.

It was an incredible relief to slide into the driver’s seat at the end of school. Parrish climbed in next to him, considerably less reluctant than at the start of the day.

Ronan wondered if prolonged exposure was always this effective at making him more likeable (or at the very least, tolerable). Common sense would have indicated the opposite, but this was most likely Parrish subverting the ordinary again.

Ronan drove Adam back to his place in stilted silence. Parrish was deep in thought, up until they passed the roadworks from the morning.

He leaned forward curiously as they pulled past it, and murmured; ‘What happened?’

Ronan felt his stomach twist in irrational fear. 

Technically, he didn’t know. He’d been in the midst of a gunfight between cops and a gang of… thieves? hoodlums? methheads? It was hard to say.

In any case, the situation had been in hand. Then something had smashed through the ground beneath them, throwing lumps of concrete and rebar and bitumen across their chosen battlefield.

Ronan knew what it was. He just didn’t understand how it got there… or why.

It was too close to Parrish. Everything these days was too close to Parrish. _Ronan_ was too close.

Parrish didn’t know he was the Widower. Ronan was certain. Because if Parrish knew, there was no reason why he wouldn’t _say_ something. Why would Parrish bother keeping up the pretence?

Why did Ronan bother keeping up the pretence?

He tried not to think about it.

He tried not to think about every time he’d waded into Parrish’s life and pretended he was a stranger. He tried to ignore every moment he could have revealed his identity before now.

He’d justified it a hundred ways. Parrish’s safety. Gansey’s safety. His own… safety.

It was too late. That was the main thing. He’d chosen his course and he had to stick with it. Even if it meant hiding from another person, another Gansey. Even if it meant never earning Parrish’s complete trust, as the Widower or as himself. It was just too late.

There was a gap along the curb out front of Parrish’s building, but Ronan made a point of pulling into it as violently as possible to convey his distaste for the convention of orderly parking.

‘Thank you.’ Adam ventured carefully, opening his door. He stepped out, paused, and held the door open slightly. ’I’ll catch you later.’

It was an awkward concession. Ronan scowled at his knuckles on the steering wheel.

‘Later.’ He acknowledged finally. Adam closed the door with a soft thud, and Ronan kicked the car into the road.

Parrish disappeared into the building as Ronan pulled away. He would, of course, see Parrish later, when he foolishly tried to walk home from work alone (or worse, with that moron from last night). Ronan had been dealing with vigilante crap for weeks… It could wait a couple extra nights, while Ronan made sure Parrish didn’t get himself killed.

 

 

 

As it turned out, Parrish’s work closed unusually early that night. Naturally, Ronan only discovered this after waiting on a nearby rooftop for an hour for Parrish to appear.

He had music, at least, but he was still mildly frustrated by the time he tapped one knuckle on Parrish’s window pane.

Adam at his desk was now an oddly familiar sight, but the door to the living room hung open, and as he stood up he discreetly nudged it shut.

‘Work closed early.’ He admitted apologetically, opening the window. ‘New policy.’

Poking just his head into the room, Ronan heard the television next door. ‘Your brother’s home?’ He didn’t know why he was so surprised. Noah did technically live here, although he seemed to be absent a good portion of the time.

Ronan would have been curious to see how long it took the younger Parrish to discern his civilian identity, given more conducive circumstances. He’d spent more time with Noah without the suit, and the kid could be unnervingly perceptive.

It was strange to find Noah Parrish so straightforward to deal with, while in comparison Adam was frustratingly difficult, but Noah was more proficient at navigating Ronan’s worse moods than anyone, including Gansey.

Along with Adam, he’d become a fixture at Monmouth, keeping Blue company or poking through Gansey’s books and toys. He played with Chainsaw, too, coaxing her into performing the tricks Ronan had lazily taught her over time. He had the ability to convince her to do most tricks without even using food, which Ronan had to concede was impressive. Possibly Noah was like the Gansey of birds, charismatic and annoyingly persuasive.

Ronan had spent enough of the day holding his tongue, and he risked a bargaining tone. ’Working tomorrow?’

‘Evening.’ Adam clarified quickly. He was standing back from the window, leaving Ronan space to enter if he wanted, and for a moment Ronan felt he could understand Gansey’s persistent distrust of the Widower.

Parrish allowing someone so unknown (someone actively dangerous) into his space willingly seemed atypically incautious. It seemed foolish. If it had been anyone other than Ronan, he would have wanted to break their neck himself.

‘Tomorrow, then.’ Ronan said. ‘We’ll test that scanner of yours.’

Parrish’s faint, conspiratorial smile had Ronan’s breath catching in his throat, and he rapidly pulled his head out of the window. He caught a glimpse of Adam pointing at the ceiling as he relinquished his grip on the window and fell backwards towards the street.


	12. Diplomacy vs. Geese - An Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings to all, and apologies.  
> Due to unforeseen global events, I am calling a *brief* hiatus. The next couple of chapters are written but are too closely reminiscent (to my mind) of things which have in reality occurred, and I would be ashamed to post them without thought of the individuals affected. The chapters were written before events, and were in no way intended to dramatise, trivialise, or capitalise on them.   
> Instead I have whipped up an small, squidgy interlude, and I hope you will all forgive me. I do not want to be callous, and this is my sole motivation for withholding. If I can I will provide other small consolations for this delay.  
> I would also like to be able to edit this unfortunate parallel out, but unfortunately I'm probably not creative enough.

Henry settled beside Gansey on the grass.

‘So, Captain, how looks our bearing?’

Gansey was slightly more frustrated than he wanted to acknowledge, but he merely sighed.

‘I have failed to sight land.’ He admitted balefully. ‘She’s irascible.’

In the distance, a dark-haired figure went racing down a hillside, hair streaming out like ribbons, and ahead of her, a flock of sheep parting in every direction with unprecedented speed and panic.

‘Why, again, did we leave behind your child bride?’

Gansey blew out a weary breath.

‘This is a diplomatic mission.’ He reminded Henry mildly, and automatically winced. ‘That is-’

‘This would no doubt test the limits of Aegis’s diplomatic patience.’ Henry rescued him sympathetically.

‘Correct.’ Gansey frowned and plucked grass up from near his leg. ‘I don’t suppose-’

‘I could drop a net on her.’ Henry suggested optimistically, immediately adding; ‘Perhaps.’

‘Thanks.’ Gansey said heavily.

It wasn’t as though he was particularly forlorn about having Banshee roaming loose at this moment. She wasn’t exactly hurting anyone. She wasn’t *evil* at all, more just… vexing. Incredibly, incredibly, vexing.

Jesse had sent them out to talk to her. The unfortunate ex-mercenary, a Veil loyal and maybe the most intimidatingly shaped human Gansey had ever seen, had the misfortune of being the first who ventured out to investigate the complaints coming from state central farmland.

He’d returned looking significantly worse-for-wear, and dropped a report on Gansey’s desk with a migraine-induced shrug of defeat.

This wasn’t the first time the Veil had encountered Banshee, nor was it the first time Gansey had come across her in his research, which was part of the reason he had approached the mission with such confidence… misplaced, as it turned out. He’d been mildly crestfallen to discover that she was not an actual Banshee, in the strict mythological sense, but substantially more dismayed to find that she was also something of an unpleasant person in general.

But now Gansey was stuck in the country (charming, under separate circumstances), away from Blue and Ronan, and the complex events of the city, and he’d been running up and down hills in inadequate footwear all day and hadn’t made any progress, and he felt overall rather miserable about it.

Ronan wouldn’t pick up the phone, either, which was entirely predictable and disappointing. At least he’d gone to pick up Adam like Gansey had suggested.

Ronan’s opinion of Adam did not seem to be yielding to Gansey’s careful plans of acclimatisation. He appeared determined to avoid being in the same room as Adam, although to Gansey’s mind this was far less aggressive than Ronan’s typical approach, and he couldn’t quite ascertain why he’d chosen it.

Maybe Ronan had given up on stopping Gansey from accruing friends, but Gansey was a little too familiar with Lynch stubbornness to wholly believe that.

‘She’s not related, is she?’ Henry said eventually, face pinched with fatigue. Gansey looked sideways at him, sitting in the grass in full armour with his helmet off.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Sargent-related.’ Henry clarified, brushing back his hair deftly. Gansey couldn’t fathom how he kept it so vertical, even after he’d squashed it into the helmet.

Gansey winced again. ‘No.’ He allowed a shudder. ‘Good lord, no.’

‘Ah.’ Henry responded regretfully. ‘I thought, with the mysticism, and the… ah, the, ahem… spirit?’

‘Mysticism.’ Gansey repeated. He knew well what Henry was referring to, and it persisted in troubling him. 

When they’d arrived on the farm, she’d been traumatising the geese. Every goose honk was met with an outstandingly off-putting honk in response, and by the time Henry and Gansey had gotten over the shock (and horror) of witnessing this, the volume of noise was such as to be unbearably alarming. When Gansey had rescued his wits and waded in, she’d taken one glance at him and switched to husky, sombre verse.

“ _Blue lily, lily blue,_

_Misfortune renders fate unto,_

_Though love’s sacrifice be not made,_

_Bitter loss finds debt repaid_ ”

The possible reference to Blue, love, and loss in one poem was enough to startle Gansey into anxious confusion, and at that point Henry had joined him and enquired as to what exactly _was_ the purpose of geese and why were they so formidably intimidating?

He later made a comparison between a goose and Ronan which had sufficiently improved Gansey’s mood, and they had proceeded with the pursuit of their quarry, not that it had yielded positive results.

A stray sheep went galloping (did sheep gallop?) past on their left and Gansey sighed again.

She was completely resistant to all attempts at persuasion and reasoning, and Gansey was almost at the point of agreeing to certain strategies involving nets.

‘Doesn’t Lynch hail from these parts?’ Henry asked, raising a green stained gauntlet to his eyeline dubiously.

‘Not so far out.’ Gansey advised softly. He did wish Blue was here. It was nearly sunset, and the air was already chill, ruffling the pale leaves of wintered trees. It was beautiful, and peaceful, despite the woman hurtling up and down slopes and harassing livestock.

Henry, in spite of his marvellous commitment to Veil duties, was not as contented in the country as Blue would be, or Ronan, or even Adam, who had at one point confessed his tan was due to long hours of farmwork over the school holidays.

Gansey suspected it was safer in the country, provided you weren’t being assailed by a woman of questionable sanity. For starters, a lot, if not most, individuals obtained their powers through scientific exploration and clandestine experimentation concentrated in the cities, theirs in particular. Vine, for example, or the Gray Man, or Chimera. Possibly the Widower too, although Gansey wasn’t certain.

He’d dug through the archives. He knew the Widower had come back from some kind of overseas commission. The technology was different, and the motif, but the powers were essentially the same, which suggested some kind of delayed ageing process.

Chimera, too, had openly declared that the poorly restricted corporate and (strongly hinted) military pressure for new advances and breakthroughs had been the source of his powers, although he’d always refused to disclose the exact circumstances, the exact corporations, or anything else which could compromise his civilian identity.

Chimera hadn’t worn a mask, and he’d insisted the same process that had transformed him had simultaneously rendered him unrecognisable. Gansey wasn’t sure of the truth of this. He’d found enough documentation (most of it damaged or heavily redacted) to suggest that in the months prior to Chimera’s appearance, Viridiveste Corp. had rapidly closed down and buried a significant project that they’d been furtively undertaking away from prying eyes in an undisclosed location.

Gansey didn’t hide this knowledge, but he didn’t particularly like to broadcast it, either. VVC had tendrils of influence in most people’s lives. Conspiracy theorists online urgently insisted that they were quietly obtaining control over water and food distribution in the city, manipulating pharmacological markets and study results, and running vast, secret psychological experiments on the population, among other things.

Additionally, both of Ronan’s parents had once worked for VVC, and Gansey had long suspected that the company’s competitors had something to do with the… tragedy.

He pulled out his phone and dialled Ronan’s phone, unsurprised yet dissatisfied to find the call ringing out.

He missed Ronan. He missed Blue. He missed Adam.

His sister Helen constantly told him that he relied too heavily on other people. He needed them too much. He was co-dependent. Gansey thought it wasn’t quite so maladaptive as that. He thought, at its worst, it was just an Epicurean lifestyle, requiring the honesty and company of his friends to obtain full value from any experience.

Distracted, Gansey didn’t notice anything odd until Henry nudged his elbow.

Standing a half dozen meters away, idly swatting at mosquitoes and cooing rather facetiously at a nearby quail, was Banshee.

She was a very accurate visual representation of a person who had spent several weeks chasing farm animals and scaring farmers. She turned a slightly manic grin on Gansey.

‘Not a thief, but a murderer!’ She opined loudly, and Henry lifted an eyebrow marginally at her tone.

Gansey frowned. ‘Excuse me?’

She smiled, wickedly. Gansey thought she was the furthest thing from a heartbroken Ophelia that madness could produce.

“ _Lost wretched mind, to a glutton clings,_

_From perished innocence, guilty reverence springs,_

_When shadow walker stirs past untamed,_

_Three of your number must be claimed_.”

She laughed, and Gansey flinched.

‘That’s… lovely.’ Henry said, with polite humour. ‘Is that Poe?’

Gansey added; ‘I don’t understand. Is that about us?’

‘You understand. You know, you know. If not now, then later, if not later, then now. You will, you will.’

She smirked at him, pivoted, and ran off down the hill. Gansey groaned.

‘Is that… precognition? Or is that just… creepiness?’ Henry asked lightly.

‘Three of our number?’ Gansey squinted at the retreating figure. ‘Does she mean the Veil?’

Henry hummed kindly, but didn’t answer.

‘I don’t like my predictions depressing.’ Gansey confessed morosely.

‘Hm.’ Henry replied. ‘Perhaps she meant “claimed” in a different way.’ He waved a hand in a pained, stymied manner.

‘As in, I claim you as my own?’ Gansey asked doubtfully.

Claiming Blue as his own would be an action likely to get him thrown out a window. He’d be more comfortable claiming Ronan, but that would hardly be groundbreaking. Ronan was already practically a brother, and in any case, he wasn’t a part of the Veil.

Another sigh. The sun dipped below the horizon, and they postponed the mission until the morning.


	13. It's an earthquake, it's a villain, it's... UST?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's support and patience has been overwhelmingly kind, and without you all I don't think I could have gotten back off my lazy butt, but it means so much to me and it's wonderful to have you guys motivating this horrible, terrible, no-good slow burn.  
> I mean no disrespect concerning any of the truly terrible things that have happened over the course of writing this, and I hope it doesn't cause any discomfort or offence to anyone.

For a few moments after Ronan catapulted himself onto the roof of Parrish’s building the next morning, he thought he’d misunderstood the gesture.

Then he saw Adam, folded into the shade of the roof access building. He was carefully confined to the breadth of a blanket he’d laid on the ground, with his backpack next to him, and a textbook opened across his legs.

He didn’t declare his presence, either, which left Ronan to twist side to side awkwardly looking for him. When Ronan finally noticed him, he was watching with a gently amused expression.

‘What?’ Ronan hissed immediately.

Adam shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen you in daylight before.’ He explained gently. ‘It’s odd.’

‘So is your face.’ Ronan grumbled. ‘Where is it, then? Get it over with.’

Adam stood up and pulled something from his bag.

At a distance it looked like a retro laptop, slate-grey and chunky, but up close it was more like a cobbled together collection of mismatched inoperable scrap.

Ronan squinted at it, and from Adam’s expression, the mask adequately conveyed his doubt.

Adam made no attempt to defend himself. He just opened it, revealing an even more questionable tangle of wires and boxes and a faintly lit scratched screen. Adam placed it on the blanket in the shade, and Ronan hesitated, torn between curiosity and the urge to say something insulting.

He compromised by crouching next to Parrish and muttering; “Wow.’

Adam shot him a look which bordered on actual irritation.

Almost immediately after Parrish woke the machine, it made a soft noise and a text box appeared on screen. Ronan leaned in.

‘10-55?’ He quickly straightened and turned west. Adam’s hand caught his elbow.

‘Drunk driver.’ He reported drily. ‘I think they can manage.’

Ronan scowled and knelt back down.

Parrish’s machine continued spilling related information onto the screen. It produced a description of the code, records of related incidents within a five-mile radius, locations and numbers of squad cars in the vicinity, other recent codes that had occurred in the area, news reports, police statements, social media references, images, video references…

Ronan rocked back as a second code came through, too busy processing the onslaught to react.

‘Mother of God, Parrish, this is an Orwellian monstrosity.’

‘Don’t be melodramatic.’ Adam murmured. Ronan looked sideways at his face, once again schooled into calm inscrutability.

‘This is so _illegal_.’

‘That’s why I’m giving it to you.’

Ronan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He wanted to - well, what he wanted was unspeakable - but he would have settled for a proud smirk if Parrish would have been able to see it.

‘10-92?’ Ronan regarded the screen with newfound respect.

‘Vehicle hazard.’ Adam responded, low on his haunches and leaned across his contraption.

‘And 10-52?’

‘Ambulance request.’

‘Jesus.’

The codes kept appearing, followed by several pages of cross-referenced information and more codes.

‘You’re not sure it works?’ Ronan asked dubiously.

Parrish shrugged. ’Technically I’ve never been on-scene, so… it could be manufacturing false cases. Or misreading codes. Or the software might be recording addresses and details wrong.’

‘How’s it accessing the internet?’

‘Wifi.’ Adam said vaguely, and Ronan tilted his head. Parrish didn’t even have a functional computer, let alone-

 _Ah_.

‘You hijacked someone’s Wifi?’

Parrish didn’t answer, and Ronan mimed wiping a proud tear from his eye.

Some codes arrived within twenty or thirty seconds of the last, others after a break of two or three minutes. None of them seemed to be of much concern to Parrish, who was adjusting some of the wiring.

Ronan nudged the screen with one finger, still impressed.

‘Why’d you build this?’

‘It’s connected to a series of proxy servers through a VPN.’ Adam replied evasively, avoiding Ronan’s gaze. ‘As far as I’m aware, it’s untraceable.’

‘Is this-’ Ronan’s sharp grin distorted the mask. ‘- a _gift_ , Parrish?’

Adam didn’t react, except for the colour crawling up the side of his neck.

Ronan had to forcibly suppress his delight at this revelation. He conceded that maybe retrieving Parrish’s lost school bag hadn’t been the damnably sentimental waste of time he’d thought it was, and possibly Adam wasn’t as ungrateful as he seemed.

The very occasional random individual Ronan hauled out of trouble was always of the sort of… overwhelmed variety. Grateful, sometimes cloyingly so, always scared, as much of Ronan as of their attackers. Adam’s failure to experience that degree of appreciation or fear had been unsettling, but over time Ronan had felt the need to conclude it was due to Parrish’s strange social limitations.

Perhaps Adam just required different means to communicate.

Ronan had to concentrate very hard on not standing up and kicking things gleefully around the roof.

Adam broke a stretch of silence by shifting away from the machine to sit on his backpack. Ronan smirked. He was only wearing jeans and a jacket over his t-shirt, but Parrish behaved as though he were wearing fine evening wear. Probably he needed them for work tonight, potentially tomorrow as well.

‘They’ve introduced codes for powered events.’ Adam noted. ‘Been in use for years now.’

‘So?’

‘So… they’re like warning codes.’ Adam hesitated. ‘Caution codes.’

’So?’ Ronan started to shrug and stopped. ’You mean they won’t attend?’

‘Exactly.’ Adam exhaled in apparent relief, glad to avoid actually saying it.

‘Huh.’ Ronan frowned. Either the police force was aware that powered individuals were too much for them to handle, and had chosen the sensible path of self-preservation, or they were being instructed to stay out of the way. It didn’t seem like the Veil to engender such a situation - not least because they hadn’t existed for as long as the codes had. But there wasn’t anyone else…

He struggled to bring to mind any incident over the last six months that could have resulted in or from such a code, but most of the time Ronan had either arrived after the police or left before them.

‘Do you keep the output?’ Ronan asked, thinking of Gansey’s religious record keeping. Something like this would give Gansey bigger heart-eyes than Blue did.

‘It’s uploaded.’ Adam explained. ‘I don’t have a way of storing it offline.’

‘Uploaded to where?’

‘Private server.’ Adam answered discreetly, and Ronan snorted. He nearly asked if Cheng was the one teaching him to be such a prodigious hacker, but managed to bite his tongue.

 

 

 

Adam thought (only thought, mind you) that the Widower liked his machine.

Or, if he didn’t like it, he at least saw some strategic value to it. It was likely that Ironbee had a more advanced program to locate incidents on the ground, but Adam didn’t know if the tentative alliance extended the Widower’s access to such a thing. And in any case, if the Widower didn’t want the scanner, Adam would give it to Gansey.

He hadn’t been able to dispel the suspicion that Gansey knew more than he was revealing about the Veil. And the more Adam considered it, the more Henry Cheng seemed like a perfect candidate for the genius in a suit of impenetrable armour. Cheng’s grades were a non-event… if Henry was applying all his energies to schoolwork he would have graduated by now and been happily ensconced at MIT or Caltech.

Adam could have directed the vigilante off to investigate any one of the smaller codes which had been called, but they seemed inappropriately inconsequential, and he was still struggling to entirely comprehend the sight of a black-clad superhero figure with eight eyes in the bright, harsh light of the morning.

The suit was extremely dark, slightly difficult to look at, and seamless. It looked as though it was insulated, giving a decent buffer between skin and any potential weapons or environmental forces. Adam wondered if it was armoured. He doubted it, the Widower had demonstrated feats of athleticism that armour would restrict, not to mention the bullet in his leg. There could have been a layer of kevlar across his chest, but the suit seemed to follow his form without any evidence of additional padding.

Adam was staring. He went back to his textbook hurriedly.

The Widower stood up and stepped away from the scanner, out of the shade. He picked up a large piece of gravel and threw it with considerable force off the side of the roof.

‘What happened on Thursday?’ Adam asked, recalling his former interest.

The Widower tipped one wrist towards himself as if pretending to glance at a watch. ‘Thursday?’

‘Thursday night. There’s something- Something happened down the street.’

‘Right.’ There was a pause. The Widower hurled another rock, and Adam heard the distant sound of it slamming into something metallic on a different roof. ’S’fucked.’

‘The street?’

Adam thought he might have snorted, but he was too far away to properly hear.

‘The train.’ Another rock, another muffled _clang_.

On the verge of a follow-up question, Adam stopped. The object that he’d assumed had crashed into the street was the top of a silver and green train, identical to the one Adam used to get to and from the library on weekends, if not the very same one. He fell silent, consumed with morbid fascination.

How would a subway train burst out of the ground?

‘What were you fighting?’

The Widower made a “pfft” noise and flapped a hand. ‘Gangbangers. Nothing- That wasn’t them.’

‘What was it?’

‘An accident?’ The vigilante said, and Adam couldn’t identify if the robotic voice was derisive or dismissive. ‘There was nothing down there.’

‘An accident.’ Adam echoed doubtfully.

He despised the cold dread that curled through his ribcage and crushed his lungs. He hated feeling that the rooftop was suddenly too exposed, suddenly unsafe. Unbidden fear for Noah made his fingers tremble.

Abruptly, the Widower swivelled. ‘Void’s dead, Parrish.’

‘I know.’ Adam agreed quietly.

The Widower didn’t guarantee it. He wasn’t ignorant enough, Adam knew that. There was no certainty in a world in which superheroes could toy with the laws of physics, of _nature_.

‘If this was something- _anything_ \- it’s something new.’ The Widower insisted grimly. He seemed perfectly aware that this wasn’t exactly a comforting thing to say, but he didn’t seem to care, for which Adam was oddly grateful.

‘But you didn’t see anything?’

‘Nothing.’

He threw another rock, so hard it vanished into unseeable ether with a soft _whoosh!_ as Adam furtively watched. His physical strength was evidently greater than that of an ordinary human, but what specific genetic variation made that possible? Was he still human? If it was genetic (in the familial sense) and that previous iteration had been a father, an uncle, a grandfather or some other hereditary precedent, did that mean this Widower would have similarly enhanced children?

‘Are there limits to your capacity for regeneration?’ He asked, rather suddenly if the Widower’s jerkily aborted pebble-toss was any indication.

‘Of course.’ He replied snidely. ‘I heal rapidly, I’m not Wily-fucking-Coyote.’

‘Right.’ Adam rolled his eyes, a habit he’d very likely learned from Noah. ‘But if you were to, say, lose a tooth, would you grow a new one?’

‘No, genius, I can’t just regrow body parts. I’m not just gonna lose an arm and have a fucking new one by morning. I’m not a fucking lizard.’

‘Ah. See, I thought you were a lizard. My bad.’

The vigilante tossed the rock in the air a couple times, as if considering throwing it at Adam, but apparently decided against it.

’So what’s the limitation?’

The Widower shrugged. ‘It is what it is. I regenerate faster what would naturally regenerate. I’m not suddenly able to regenerate something which isn’t there anymore.’

‘You can only regenerate from related cells?’ Adam pondered. ‘Do you get sick?’

’Sometimes. I’m not immune to viruses, I just-’

He cut off sharply, and went alarmingly still.

‘Pack that up.’ It was unrecognisably mechanical.

‘What-’

‘ _Pack up, Parrish!_ ’

Adam shoved his book into his bag and the Widower materialised at his side, as Adam tried to fold his machine back together.

He had almost managed to stuff it closed when the building, the whole, massive building under them, shuddered.

Adam had never felt an earthquake before, but he instinctively recognised that was what was happening. It was harder to balance than he’d expected, even crouching, and he fell against the wall, narrowly avoiding crushing the scanner.

It was louder, too. Like an explosion.

Maybe it _was_ an explosion. Adam didn’t know. It felt like the building was crumbling, but he didn’t know if that was just the nauseating instability of tons upon tons of concrete and steel. It sounded like a thousand people breaking a thousand rocks with a thousand sledgehammers. It sounded like a volcano in an Attenborough documentary.

The Widower was next to him, pinning him to the wall with one arm. He seemed steady, so possibly it was just Adam’s brain that couldn’t function.

It was over as suddenly as it had arrived, but Adam needed an extra minute for the world to come back into focus.

He was clutching the Widower’s arm so tightly his hands were white, though it could have been from fear instead of pressure.

Between the two of them, the scanner tossed out a new burst of code.

‘Wha- What- What?’

The Widower’s voice modulator chortled quietly. ‘Someone up there’s trying to kill you, Parrish.’

Adam groaned. ‘What the _hell_ was that?’

The Widower peered at the scanner. ‘Not an earthquake.’

‘ _What_?’

‘God _damn_ , Parrish, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.’

Adam tried, tried desperately to calm his breathing. He still hadn’t let go, moderately terrified that if he did the whole building might just collapse.

‘Localised.’ The Widower asserted confidently. ’Not very powerful, either. Shouldn’t be too much damage.’

He started to stand, inadvertently pulling Adam up with him. He seemed slightly surprised to find Adam still holding onto him, but did nothing to remove his hands.

‘Huh.’ He leaned forward slightly to inspect the scanner. ‘Another rogue train.’

Adam pivoted to follow his gaze, and found there was, in fact, a picture someone had tweeted of the rear carriage (or possibly the front carriage) of a train, stabbing upwards through the road surface at nearly a vertical angle.

The Widower took a couple steps towards the edge of the roof, and faltered when he found that Adam followed, inexorably drawn by uncertainty and lingering fear.

‘Sorry.’ With some effort, Adam uncurled his fingers and released the captive arm. He might have been shaking, it was difficult to tell.

‘It’s safe here.’ The Widower said, but Adam heard his hesitation. He frowned, and the Widower added; ‘You can come and see a fucked up Thomas the Tank Engine if you want… but…’ He fidgeted. ‘Could be messy.’

Adam realised he meant _bloody_ and felt cold.

Why wouldn’t a train on a Saturday be full of people?

‘I can help.’ He insisted, moving to the edge of the roof. Anxiety warred with morbid curiosity in his stomach, but he forced himself to look over.

There was nothing obviously damaged in the street below, although there were people milling around the entrances to apartment buildings, car lights flashing, and a slight haze of dust.

‘It’s fine.’ He repeated, mostly to himself. ‘I can help.’

Behind him, the Widower webbed the door closed, stuck Adam’s backpack to the wall, and sprinted over.

Even though Adam half-turned, he still felt his breath catch in his throat when the Widower jumped, one arm around Adam’s waist and the other reaching out into empty space.

 

 

 

The accident (if it could be called that) had happened a couple blocks over, beyond the bank which had so unceremoniously been robbed about a week earlier.

The front of the train had erupted out of the middle of an intersection, and the sight momentarily left Adam paralysed with horror. The front was demolished and crushed inwards, nearly a thousand pounds of metal pulverised back upon itself. The carriage had buckled, some of the reinforced windows at the front finally shattering under the pressure, and those at the back warping and threatening to follow suit.

The Widower had already plunged into the chaos surrounding the wreck. Onlookers had spilled out of the bank and out of cars trapped in every in direction, and many were circling the rupture in the bitumen, peering into the dark or reaching helplessly for the broken doors.

People were trying to climb out the smashed windows, many of them bleeding, most of them struggling to manoeuvre over the gap between train and safe ground. Because of the angle of the carriage, with at least three meters still hanging perilously into the darkness, most people were still trapped inside at the bottom as if it were a gigantic steel tin. Car horns sounded in every direction, sirens approaching from the distance, and children and adults were screaming and yelling.

The Widower moved rapidly, clearing a path through the crowd with his formidable appearance alone, and immediately leaping onto the side of the train and grabbing hold of a hysterical young woman clinging to a window frame. He delivered her and several others to the ground, before skidding sideways down the structure and using both his hands and feet to pry open one of the bent doors. It was nearly level with the surface of the road, and Adam saw the carriage tilt slightly as the weight of humans inside shifted in an attempt to reach the door.

The crowd was starting to spread wider - someone had taken the young woman off to a curb to sit down, someone else was attending to a man in a MetroRail uniform with a large gash on his head and blood all over his clothes - and Adam waded through towards the door the Widower had managed to force open.

The vigilante was half inside, reaching for something, only his feet visibly gripping the shell and stop him from disappearing into the darkness below.

Adam was so close he could hear shrill voices from inside, and see the blinking lights of the windows of the second carriage, itself also nearly upright and dangling in the tunnel below. The conjoining tube of rubber was ripped open and exposed several panicked faces at the dangling door, people who must have climbed up the seats to reach a potential exit.

‘Parrish!’

Adam looked up from the depths, and the Widower was hanging from the doorframe by both feet and one hand, a child no more than six pinned by his free arm. Adam reached for him instinctively, and lifted the weeping boy to the ground next to him.

The Widower’s torso vanished back inside, and Adam moved the boy round to his hip, holding him with one arm. The next escapee was a woman, young and petite, but stretching towards the boy as soon as she saw him over the Widower’s shoulder. She was small enough to be easy for Adam to lift, and as soon as he got her feet on the ground she was whisking the boy away from the threatening hole in the earth.

Adam helped the Widower pull others out of the bowels of the carriage, so many he lost count, before the whole thing creaked ominously and started to ease itself gently into the depths out of which it had been thrown.

He considered lunging forward and attempting to pull the Widower from the side of the shell before it fell, but the vigilante abruptly jumped off himself, landing beside Adam and firing a rapid burst of webs connecting train to nearby vehicles and buildings in a ploy to secure the train in place.

There was a man they’d recovered still standing close by, one hand feebly holding a makeshift bandage over his bloodied shoulder, headphones askance, and an iPhone in the other hand, recording a trembling video of the Widower and the train.

Adam gently pushed his wrist down, against barely any resistance, and investigated the seeping sweater he was using to stem the blood flow from a large wound across his collarbone.

Ambulances had arrived, most of them three or four hundred metres away behind the jammed and damaged road lanes, and Adam quietly encouraged the vaguely shocked man towards several paramedics trying to marshal the injured.

The Widower returned, diving back into the train without hesitation. Adam could hear a fire truck siren somewhere, and possibly police sirens, and he allowed himself the brief hope that this was some freak accident, unrelated to powered villainy.

There were only a few more individuals trapped in the train, and as soon as the Widower had extricated them, he turned his focus to the carriage sloping down into the tunnel.

Adam stepped to his side, and the Widower raised a hand sharply.

’Stay here.’

‘Why?’

The vigilante made a noise halfway between a laugh and a hiss. ‘It might still be down there.’

‘What?’ Adam said, unrestrainedly frustrated. ‘We don’t know what _it_ is.’

He felt more certain now that this wasn’t Kavinsky’s work. Void had been theatrical, daring, and very, very, public. Throwing trains and not applauding himself for it just wasn’t Void’s style.

The Widower made no move to help or hinder him, but simply stepped into the gap between asphalt and train and disappeared into the gloom.

Adam pulled away from the edge, half-fuming, half-grateful, and circled the hole. Fire fighters had arrived, carrying ladders over their shoulders. One of them glanced at Adam with genuine concern, and after a moment he realised he had someone else’s blood smeared across his jacket.

Another one looked into the tunnel and murmured something about “superhero” and “web” with hushed awe. Adam took another step back, as police officers started clearing the scene, and two lines of gleaming white web zipped out and fixed themselves to the end of the ladder being cautiously extended over the hole.

The Widower had built his own ladder, Adam realised, just as a hand fell on his shoulder.

‘Are you alright?’ A police woman stood behind him, face delicately sympathetic. ‘Go and stand over there, honey.’

Adam retreated, meekly obedient to authority, and hovered by the pedestrian crossing. Others were gathered on the opposite corner, but Adam could barely see them beyond a Metro bus that was creeping ever so slightly forward across the intersection. A few figures milled around the front end of the bus, unaware of its subtle motion.

One in particular caught Adam’s attention, a man who could generously be attributed the epithet of “unkempt”. His hair grew to his shoulders, and his beard was equally tangled and filthy. Unlike the stirring, thronging individuals around him, this figure stood still, slouched like standing was too great an effort for him.

Adam couldn’t see his eyes, but he seemed to be fixated on the train wreck. His expression was… wrong, somehow. Adam couldn’t quite identify what about it bothered him, but something struck a discordant note under his ribcage.


	14. There may be more romantic things to do on a date, but hey, I'm a traditionalist, so let's fight crime.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! 2018!   
> Terrifying, isn't it?

Ronan was trying to get an elderly and very terrified man to climb his web ladder when his skin started to prickle. He hadn’t been able to investigate any further along the train tracks, but he knew, in the same way an animal sensed an approaching disaster, that he was in the wrong place.

There was a fresh eruption of screaming and shouting from up above, and a series of crashing and splintering sounds followed by an immense smash.

His first thought was something along the lines of “ _Why do I bother_?” and his second was nothing more than “ _Adam_.”

He abandoned the rescue attempt and launched himself out of the tunnel, startling a nearby firefighter who’d been left to help people climb out.

Ronan pivoted, but there was no sign of Parrish. The crowd that had gathered to point and stare was dispersing, rapidly, scrambling around, between and over cars in their haste to escape. Paramedics and firefighters were running to assist people who were injured or trapped, and police officers were darting from place to place, seeking cover with their weapons drawn.

Ronan jumped to the train carriage, still vertical, and climbed to the top, where he could crouch and survey the scene.

Ahead, where a bus had been idling at the corner beside the bank, there was empty space. And where the front half of the bank lobby had been, there was nothing but carnage. The corner foundation, windows, wall and door had been entirely smashed in, littering the once polished floor with broken glass and chunks of stone and wood. The reception desk was broken into pieces and scattered, and part of the ceiling had been scraped loose and was dangling tenuously towards the floor. At the centre of the lobby was the bus, on one side, two wheels still spinning uselessly and the whole thing engulfed in a cloud of dust.

Ronan tried to remember where Parrish had been, tried to pick him out among the dozens of people running away.

On the opposite side of the street to the bank, an upside down red Prius had been overturned half onto the sidewalk, and beyond that, a silver Honda had skidded sideways and snapped a streetlight at its base, dropping the length of the pole across the road.

Straight in front of Ronan, there was a lone figure in the middle of the now empty street. It was a man, or at least man-sized, but hard to see clearly behind an overgrown beard and thick tangled hair.

To Ronan’s right, a policeman yelled at the stranger to put his hands in the air, from a position behind the hood of a Subaru. Someone else on the left echoed the instruction with more volume and panic. Several more people were dragging a third, unconscious officer out of the gutter near the bank.

Someone fired on the figure in the road, and Ronan saw the bullet glance off his shoulder. It tore his clothing but failed to even mark his skin, and drove him into a fury. He seized the end of the fallen streetlight and wrenched it free of the damaged car, howling like an animal.

Ronan briefly hoped that he wouldn’t get shot this time, and leapt from the top of the train.

He got a web onto the hitting end of the pole as it scraped the top of the Prius and swung out across the intersection, and, trusting that the city’s finest would be adequately able to dodge the swing, let it sweep him through the air until it collided with the identical light-pole across the street (barely left standing by the arc of the bus) and then he ducked around it, webbing the two together and trapping the weapon.

Whatever it was, Ronan had gotten its attention.

He could feel the strength of the thing through the momentum of the swing, and it was clear he wouldn’t be able to disarm it personally.

More people started spilling out through the remnants of the bank building behind Ronan, those who had managed to climb free of the bus wreckage, most bloodied and some struggling to walk. Even as Ronan sprinted forward, trying to draw the creature’s focus further down the street and away from the potential targets, the second pole started to lean and creak ominously from the pressure being exerted upon it.

Over his opponent’s shoulder, Ronan saw Parrish.

He was just behind the Prius, and pulling someone from the car.

The standing streetlight bent with the hideous wail of collapsing metal, and Ronan leapt onto the hood of a car behind him to avoid the tangled mess as it crashed down. Although free, the man’s weapon was now unwieldy, and he disposed of it with an enraged toss to one side.

Ronan tried to find Adam again, but couldn’t see him. The police were clearing out, taking the survivors who could move with them, and Ronan hoped Adam would just go.

Now unrestricted, the man charged Ronan.

His speed didn’t seem to be enhanced, but he moved like a juggernaut, and Ronan lingered long enough to see the rolling whites of his eyes before leaping out of the way. As he slammed head and torso into the car Ronan had barely vacated, caving it in and forcing it to slide back and slam into the car behind it, Ronan felt an unexpected sensation of dread sink to his gut.

He couldn’t, didn’t have time to trace this feeling to its origins, because the squashed car was being flung bodily in his direction. Ronan flipped backwards and tried to web it to slow it down, but it just flew overhead, and he ditched the webs before they could tear him off his feet.

He tried, instead, the same method he’d exercised with Kavinsky. A couple of webs to the surrounding buildings to fix his opponent’s limbs in place, one to a van twenty or so feet down the road, another to the asphalt, and one to a section of sidewalk.

It was hardly surprising, but nevertheless frustrating to watch the entity rip himself free, although Ronan was faintly impressed to observe that he failed to snap or detach the web, merely dislodging huge chunks of concrete, stone and brick, as well as an entire chunk of metal from the front of the van.

Unfortunately, Ronan had only succeeded in attaching a colourful variety of new projectiles to his enemy.

A piece of steel whipped towards him, and he rolled out of the way, catching another glimpse of what must have been Parrish as he prised open the rear door of the Honda. Parrish was dangerously, distractingly close to the fight, barely thirty feet from the monster himself, but Ronan was immediately occupied by dodging a child-sized piece of concrete, which crashed through someone’s windscreen and was promptly dragged loose again.

Ronan tried slowing him down, webbing his feet to the ground, webbing his arms together, even launching projectiles at him, but each attempt only temporarily suspended his motion.

Swatting aside a metal bus bench Ronan had thrown, the man lunged for another car. His throw was excessively high, although Ronan wasn’t certain if that was intentional or not, and Ronan couldn’t prevent the vehicle from smashing straight into the bank and demolishing the remaining front corner.

Time staggered to a halt.

All of the hair on Ronan’s arms stood on end under the suit.

He dropped the attempt to fight and bolted, passing within feet of his opponent and hurdling the hood of the Honda with one jump. He almost collided with Adam, crouched on the other side, with a lanky bespectacled guy curled up miserably next to him.

Ronan grabbed Adam’s arm and growled; ‘I said _stay_.’

‘Wait-’

Ronan was already shooting a web out towards a building on the other side of the intersection, fully prepared to desert the stranger and drag Parrish to safety.

The ground shuddered, accompanied by the subtle, solemn groan of the bank building starting to tip over. Ronan’s web caught, but he had to abort a hasty leap when a massive piece of stone landed on the top of the car behind them. Adam staggered, and Ronan discarded his web to grab him with both hands and stop him tripping onto the severed light pole stump.

‘ _Joel_.’ Parrish whispered urgently to the man cowering next to him. Ronan rolled his eyes. This guy was such a Joel. He whined unenthusiastically in response. ‘You have to _move_.’

Adam was typically factual, without even an edge of cloying sympathy, and Ronan felt a surge of unbidden affection. A rush of air swept across the road as the front of the bank building tipped forward, bringing breathfuls of dust and the threat of impending pulverisation. Ronan straightened up and pulled, barely registering Parrish’s resistance.

‘Stop.’

‘Leave him.’ Ronan demanded harshly. He couldn’t catch his breath. He had to get him out, _now_ , before this was another Void, before the building came down, before Ronan _lost_ him…

He dropped to the ground, dragging Parrish down with him as a jagged chunk of metal sliced through the air above their heads.

Someone in the distance screamed “Run, _run!_ ” and the ceiling of the bank’s ground floor folded onto the surface of the road.

Ronan had just raised his hand (the other arm hooked tightly around Adam’s chest) when everything went still, a rippling blue shield curving across the sky. He took the risk of hauling Parrish straight upright, shooting a look over the top of the car to check that his opponent had been incapacitated.

Aegis was directly under the collapsing building, one arm lifted upwards to suspend it, and the other extended to the side, encasing the attacker in an globe of blue light that he struck repeatedly and viciously.

Ronan catapulted himself over the Honda.

‘W!’ Blue ground out through gritted teeth. ‘What in the name of-’

As Parrish circled the car and stopped by Ronan’s side, she cut herself off sharply.

Ronan tried to block his view by shifting sideways, but faint confusion had already suffused his features before he’d managed to carefully compose his expression.

Ronan thought; _oh, fuck_.

Aegis, exerting most of her energy on two significant shields, still managed to sigh ruefully. Even with the mask and goggles, it wasn’t hard to pick her out, which Ronan knew from experience. Add the undisguised voice, and Parrish would surely have no illusions as to Aegis’s civilian identity.

Joel, with great difficulty, stood up on the other side of the car and whimpered something about floating buildings before scuttling away. One of Aegis’s arms started to tremble, just slightly enough for Ronan to notice. When the building dropped, they would need to stay on one side in order to subdue their enemy, and Ronan would rather have Parrish trapped on the other. What he did or didn’t know would have to wait.

Predictably, he was motionless, staring at the hazy figure in Aegis’s bubble, punching the forcefield with unrestrained force. Ronan swiped one hand through the air, a silent but implicit instruction to _go_. Parrish watched him coolly, glanced at the frozen building and then glanced down at Blue.

With a resigned grimace, Ronan strode to Aegis’s side.

Adam had to go, Adam _had to go_.

The Veil had work to do.

 

 

 

Blue couldn’t quite understand how Ronan and Adam had turned up in the middle of another powered battlefield. Ronan? Sure. He was the poster boy for picking fights. But not Adam. Everything about Adam suggested practicality, caution. A much greater degree of common sense than Ronan had.

Did this mean Adam knew Ronan’s identity? Gansey seemed to think that Adam was in the dark about the whole superpower situation involving Blue and Henry, but then, Gansey still didn’t know about Ronan.

Either way, it probably wouldn’t take much for Adam to see the reality of the matter, now he’d encountered Aegis in person.

The way he’d looked at her, briefly questioning, then abruptly closed off, controlled… Gansey talked about Adam in a way that made him sound clever, gifted, even, and from Gansey that was not a thing to be taken lightly. But actually talking to Adam had given Blue a better idea of just how methodical he could be, how analytical. Adam had a mind like a blade, kind of like how Ronan had an attitude.

 _Weapons_ , Blue thought, not idly.

The Widower seemed appropriately displeased by this whole turn of events. He reached her side and swivelled to face their opponent, leaving Adam to find his own way out from under the falling edifice.

Blue was mildly concerned about abandoning Adam to his own devices in the middle of chaos, but most of her attention was now occupied by preventing the building from crushing them and containing this new, unknown assailant.

There was sweat beading across her forehead, and a spark of pain in her temple signalling the overuse of her power.

‘Aegis.’ The Widower said grimly. Even with the voice modulator, Blue knew the sound of the word, the exact same tone in which Ronan would say “ _Sargent_.”

She jerked her head towards Adam and mumbled; ‘Get him.’

It hadn’t escaped Blue’s notice that Ronan was more familiar with Adam than he admitted. Void’s move to abduct Adam would have been tactically empty if Kavinsky hadn’t suspected how much Ronan would risk trying to save him. In passing, Blue had noted this to Henry, who had resolutely hummed in response and revealed nothing, a surefire sign he knew more than her, probably because of his cameras and shameless spying.

Gansey, unknowingly, had added to her suspicions, repeatedly returning to the “problem” of the Widower in his anxiety about Adam’s safety. In the Widower’s behaviour, Gansey had perceived something Blue hadn’t even contemplated.

That he cared about Adam, beyond the fleeting interest of a one-time act of vigilante heroism or the extended sphere of Gansey’s friendship.

It wasn’t unlike Ronan to care, of course. That was obvious any time Gansey talked about him, or he adoringly carried that giant bird around, or when he and Blue played video games while Gansey and Henry were debating.

Still, Ronan out of the suit paid Adam about as much heed as he paid anyone who wasn’t Gansey. The same way he’d treated Henry, initially, then Blue, then… well, Adam was just next in line for Ronan’s suspicious disdain.

It was too complicated, and without Henry or Gansey in town, Blue had bigger things to worry about.

Ronan rapidly strode forwards, passing the bubbled man, who smashed his fists into the forcefield with renewed aggression, baring his teeth in a feral snarl. Blue squinted at him, unnerved less by his appearance than his savage, crazed expression.

Adam followed the Widower, more cautious, but heavily focused on the figure in the bubble. He stopped where Ronan stopped, and was unceremoniously elbowed behind him as Ronan swivelled to face Blue.

‘Ready, Powerpuff?’

Adam looked sideways at the Widower, and studiously avoided looking at Aegis.

Blue observed the line of his jaw, tipped up slightly, waiting patiently for the Widower to act, to speak… If Adam didn’t know that was Ronan, _if_ , _if_ … then Adam trusted the vigilante with his life, without equating him with Lynch. He’d have to trust the Widower as a veritable stranger, and Blue suspected that would be an incredible leap of faith for someone like Adam Parrish.

A stab of pain, this one like a knife behind her eyes, reduced Blue’s intended response to a soft “ugh.”

She released the high forcefield in an attempt to reduce the pain, and heard the top of the bank smash into the roof of the pharmacy across the street.

At precisely the same moment, she was dragged off her feet, closing her eyes through the explosion of dust and falling debris so she could concentrate on sustaining the bubble. Something glanced off the back of her vest, and then she crashed into Ronan.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t even stagger, but he swiftly deposited her on her feet and pulled back like the mere idea of human contact was debilitating to him.

If Blue could hold the bubble for long enough, they might be able to take him back to containment… if they could find some form of containment that would hold him. Her head still hurt. Even reduced, the energy she was expending was too much to allow for recovery.

She groaned. ‘What’s the goal here?’

Ronan shook his head, aggravated. ‘Destruction.’ He couldn’t do anything to the villain while Blue had him trapped, and she wasn’t sure he’d be able to do anything anyway, judging by what she’d seen.

‘Great. That’s super easy to beat.’ Blue replied sarcastically.

Ronan muttered; ‘I fucking hate super strength.’


	15. Erroneous honourable conventions, anarchical architectural reconfiguration, and people hitting each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not my finest hour (read: melodramatic insensible garbage) but at least it is out of the way. If you hated this, don't worry, because I did too, and I vote we all resolve to ignore it as nothing more than a feeble link between slightly less awful plot points. Thank you and goodnight.

The building came down, loud as an avalanche, and set off a new chorus of distant car alarms. The Widower had wrenched Aegis out of immediate danger, but a blast of dust and tiny projectiles flooded down the street and immediately swamped the three of them. Adam covered his mouth and eyes with both arms, but the masked vigilantes seemed unperturbed.

_Blue._

_Blue was Aegis._

Adam couldn’t think straight. How had he questioned Gansey’s involvement, Henry’s involvement, and not thought of the colourful hero who’d been bringing down the patriarchy for nearly two years? Aegis had become famous for months of spectacularly satisfying retribution on would-be-rapists, domestic abusers and pimps. Her reputation for bringing hell down on anyone who attacked or took advantage of the vulnerable was considerably more impressive than the Widower’s, although she tended to leave her prey alive. Even when the media had taken hold of the story and made her a household name, Aegis had shunned the fame in favour of strict adherence to her principles. She refused to participate in politico-legal squabbles and schemes, and never put her name to anything but her own actions.

At least, until Leech forced the formation of the Veil.

So Adam wasn’t surprised, particularly. It was a very logical explanation. He just felt… raw. Again. That kind of open-wound fragility of not knowing where the next blow was coming from.

So Blue… knew the Widower? They fought side by side. She didn’t share Gansey’s distrust, but why would she? There was no cause for conflict between vigilantes who fought the same enemies.

Did Blue know who he was?

Adam didn’t have the time or the focus to confront the spiralling perplexity of the problem. He was entranced by the swirling glow of Aegis’s forcefield. He was afraid of the superhuman entity, the villain trapped inside the orb. Beyond that, some subtle concern, an unidentifiable feeling of suspicion lingered on the edges of his conscious thoughts, so he’d stayed when the Widower had instructed him to leave. Wariness held him at a distance, but he kept staring, squinting to see through the drifting, impermeable blue mist.

 _Aegis was Blue_.

The blue mist disappeared so suddenly and silently that Adam had to blink before he stumbled back a step.

He was safe, so he didn’t run, but he contemplated a strategic withdrawal. The Widower and Aegis were between him and the man, both poised to fight, so even as the first, powerful punch came swinging out through the air Adam hesitated.

He saw the face, blurred with motion and the shabbiness of months upon months of accumulated grime. He saw lips pulled back over ferocious teeth. He saw the eyes, red and frenzied, and caught his breath at a sudden, baffling feeling of recognition.

The Widower jumped, a striking display of upward momentum that took him about seven feet off the ground and launched him forwards. He curved into a flip over the attacker’s shoulder, smoothly avoiding the swipe of a fist, and while upside down in midair webbed one elbow to the opposite leg.

Adam’s mouth was horribly dry. He was filled with an overpowering, semi-conscious dread.

‘Wait-’ It was meant to be a warning, a shout, but it came out as a hoarse mumble.

A dense blue orb the size of a cannonball struck the assailant in the chest as he was struggling to free his elbow from his ankle, and he seemed to at least falter.

The Widower returned with another leap, sticking the other wrist to the opposite knee, this time across the man’s front. Instead of hitting the ground, he bounced off a blue disc hovering in midair and sprang backwards.

Between Aegis’s forcefields and his own, curving leaps, the Widower stayed in motion for minutes, each flip adding a new web to the stranger’s binds until he was entangled in a dense, white straitjacket. Aegis was blocking his swipes or pinning his fists to keep him from hitting his target, and when Adam glanced at her, he could see the slight shaking of her hands.

He had to speak to her, even if it meant the end of the farce his social life had become, which had, at least, been enjoyable while it lasted.

Before he could move, she inhaled sharply, and the Widower finally landed, first onto his hands and then flipping backwards onto his feet, on the far side of the superhuman. Aegis’s last forcefield wavered and flickered out of existence.

Adam reached out, attempting to offer assistance as she dropped her head into both hands, but her opponent was slamming his bound torso into the hood of a nearby car, trying to dislodge the webs. He sprang back, alarmingly sprightly despite trapped limbs, and launched himself full speed at Aegis.

The webs attached to his legs drew taut and ripped fabric loose from his trousers, and even the ones around his body were starting to fray. Adam grabbed Blue, but he didn’t have time to pull her out of the way before the man slammed into them.

Or rather, he slammed into a faint blue wall inches from Adam’s face.

Adam still felt the force in his bones.

He couldn’t see anything but teeth and beard and staring, terrifying rage, and he twisted to escape it, folding over Blue through instinct and fear.

‘Adam-’ She squeezed his arm, but he couldn’t move, heart thumping. Something hit the wall, a spark of barely visible light erupting and dissipating near his ear. ‘Let me go.’

There wasn’t another blow, as he’d expected, but the crashing and shattering sound of a rolling car, and Blue managed (very easily) to free herself from his grip. She hooked one hand on his shoulder and he reluctantly looked up.

The Widower had tried to reign in the villain with half a dozen webs, all attached to the one arm he’d managed to wrench free of his web cocoon. The effect was evidently more distracting than controlling, as the car the vigilante had used to brace himself was overturned and the monster was pulling back, dragging the Widower forwards.

Adam felt Blue grab his arm and yank him away, but there was fresh fear climbing up his throat. The Widower had to drop the webs before he got too close, or God knew what would happen. It looked like they were wrapped around his wrists for extra leverage, and Adam wondered if he was stuck, wondered if he should intervene, if he even could without immediately perishing.

‘C’mon, Adam!’ Blue shoved him and he stumbled back towards the curb. She pulled her mask down with one hand, and the goggles up with the other and smiled, desperate and powerful. ‘Gansey will kill me if I let anything kill you.’

Despite the circumstances, Adam felt his breath catch, singularly, brutally grateful for the possibility that their friendship wasn’t over.

Behind her, the Widower was flung sideways by the attacker’s violent swing. He got his feet on the roof of a car and latched on, crouching, but a sharp rebound swing in the other direction jerked him forwards again. He struggled to land upright, and Adam, retreating as Blue turned back to the fight, felt anxiety climb up his throat.

The Widower hadn’t let go of the webs, and Adam wished he would, wished he’d put more distance between himself and the maniac trying to drag him in.

 

 

 

It was Ronan’s only way of holding his attention off as Blue tried to catch her breath.

He knew about her headaches. Long periods of power use affected Blue’s head, and Ronan didn’t want that for her. Gansey fretted about it, though not in so many words. Long-term brain damage. Maybe even fatal.

And there was Parrish, too, foolhardy and ridiculous, jumping in to try and protect her. As if Sargent needed the help.

Ronan’s feet brushed asphalt, too light to be able to get a grip on it. He bounced off a car window and tried to think of a better plan. Blue was coming back - he’d prefer she didn’t - and the webs were strangling his wrists through the suit, cutting off his blood flow and threatening to rip through the armoured suit fibre.

He couldn’t let go yet. He couldn’t force her to do this, not when it was so risky.

Ronan’s snarling opponent was knocked backwards sharply, his legs kicked out from underneath him by an excessively powerful jab of Blue’s power, and the unexpected direction of the momentum dragged Ronan face first onto the street. He swore.

Blue appeared next to him, severing his webs with a sharp edged shield. He used the trunk of the car behind him to pull himself upright as she commented; ‘That sucked.’

‘God _damn_.’ Ronan answered.

‘Back-up would be really good about now.’

‘Inconvenient time for Ironbee to take your boyfriend on vacation.’ Ronan remarked snidely.

‘Shut up, Lynch.’

They assessed the howling, twisting body on the ground, still tangled in webs and apparently motivated by nothing but fury.

Ronan stretched, spitefully ignoring the pain enflaming his arms and shoulders. ‘I assume “bubbling him” is out of the question.’

Blue levelled a dangerous glare at him, and he realised she’d pulled off her mask. ‘Excuse me for catching the damn building.’

‘You’re excused.’ Ronan responded absently, watching the figure slowly regain his footing and try to stand. ‘Fuck.’

‘What’s he doing?’ Blue whispered, tone caught between horror and exasperation.

Ronan was poised to respond with “wrecking the joint” when he realised what Blue was actually looking at.

 _Adam fucking Parrish_.

Ronan considered the likelihood that Parrish was actively trying to get himself killed.

Adam had abandoned the relative safety of the building across the street and was navigating around debris to reach them, crossing within view of the crazed creature as he went.

Ronan nearly moved, but he stopped himself. Trying to get Parrish out of the way was a Sisyphean task, and he had to do something about the one-man bulldozer before he brought down another building.

‘I’ll get him.’ Blue interjected.

‘Sargent-’ Ronan bit his tongue, inclined to tell her to take Adam and clear off, and fully aware that it would place an additional fight on his hands.

Before she could move, Parrish had dodged across to them with a startling display of energy.

‘ _I know who it is!_ ’ He explained breathlessly. Ronan could only see messy hair and skin reddened with exertion and clear blue eyes. It made it unnecessarily difficult to focus.

He scowled. Parrish seemed to register that he was pissed, because he grabbed Ronan’s elbow and squeezed emphatically. Ronan automatically shoved him off to one side, noting the enraged superhuman ahead staggering sideways and colliding with a previously dented vehicle.

‘What?’ He said venomously, trapped between frustration and the sensation of Parrish’s grip.

‘I know who- It’s _Chimera_. Remember Chimera?’

Ronan felt his stomach knot as sharply as if Gansey had said it himself. Aegis shifted so she was staring Parrish dead-on.

‘Chimera’s dead.’ Ronan growled, more noise than words.

‘They never found a body.’ Adam argued.

‘That’s because they blew him up!’

Blue punched Ronan’s other arm, but it didn’t hurt.

‘It’s him.’ Adam insisted. He looked at Blue, eyes bright and intense. ‘I’ve seen the pictures. Look at him- Just _look!_ ’

The pictures. They’d all seen Gansey’s collection of photographs, candid and staged, of Chimera during his prime. Morbid at the best of times, but with Gansey, unhealthily obsessive.

Ronan looked, and by his side, Blue looked too.

Close attention to detail wasn’t one of Ronan’s strongest attributes, especially when it came to things that aggravated him. But in the same way Gansey’s features had carved themselves into his memory as a signal of pride and affection, images of Chimera prompted irritation and displeasure, and a careful inspection of their opponent produced the same feelings.

Older… significantly grubbier, but… He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t be sure.

He laid one on Blue’s shoulder and the other on Parrish’s collarbone, and took a step back. They followed, absorbed in the same foreboding silence. He imagined he could feel Adam’s fingers around his arm through the suit.

The thing, the man who might be Chimera, was stripping the stretched and torn webs from his shredded clothing and smashing into nearby cars. He seemed to be distracted from their presence for the moment.

Ronan glanced at Blue grimly. ‘Can’t you get Nova?’

‘Not a bloody chance.’

‘What about… y’know… Groot?’

‘Yeah, right.’ She snorted. ‘And don’t call him that.’

‘Chimera was psychic.’ Adam observed, every motion signalling measured caution. ‘Right? Even if there’s some way to pin him down, he could stop you.’

‘He had a close-proximity, low-level telepathic field.’ Blue admitted, easily mirroring his unease.

‘He hasn’t used it.’ Ronan noted bluntly. If there was a chance, any chance, that this wasn’t Chimera, he was holding onto it. It wasn’t just about Gansey… although that was a big part of his motivation. To an extent it was about Chimera’s supposed invulnerability. If he really had survived the hell they’d brought down on him in Washington then how were Ronan and Blue supposed to stop him?

‘There’s something _wrong_.’ Blue pointed out.

Maybe-Chimera ripped the bumper from a beat-up Jeep and threw it straight through a third-story window of the building behind him, some conglomerate temp agency/dentist/low-rent lawyers office. There was an extended symphony of breaking glass as it smashed through internal office walls.

‘Reinforcements would be useful.’ Blue conceded reluctantly.

Ronan rolled his neck. ‘I’ll pin him down. You go get help.’

She slapped his shoulder with reflexive scorn, but he was more surprised that Parrish’s grip tightened on his arm.

‘You can’t.’ He protested, and the unexpected anxiety in his tone brought blood to Ronan’s face. Adam swiftly ruined the moment by adding; ‘It won’t work.’

He pulled his arm free and said testily; ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

Adam’s mouth was a straight line, and he exchanged concern for a steady, wary look. ‘Don’t.’

Ronan wondered, not for the first time, if Adam knew who he was under the mask. The small liberties Parrish insisted on taking, the colossal risks…

His eyes snagged on something else, and Ronan looked around in time to see the rest of the car follow the bumper’s trajectory toward the office building. Blue raised both hands, but her shields zapped and flickered out of existence in random, inconsistent patches around the car before vanishing altogether, and she shakily dropped her arms as it smashed into the building.

Ronan shot a concealed glare at Parrish, who wisely remained silent, and vaulted forwards.

Maybe-Chimera noticed his approach as he drew closer, looking, if possible, even more unhinged. An abandoned motorbike was snatched from the street and hurled towards Ronan, which he smoothly dodged. He returned fire with a web-bomb which exploded over his opponent’s face, momentarily rendering him blind. He careened into the side of a nearby Ford.

Ronan tried another bomb to fix his hand to the car door, a direct hit which engulfed hand, metal and the window glass, but with barely a grunt Maybe-Chimera stumbled back, easily detaching the whole door from the frame of the car.

Ronan swore, watching the man stagger, still blind and clawing at his face with one hand, while the other violently shook his newly acquired metal weapon.

He tried fixing a web between enemy and the wall of the office building (itself already having taken a substantial amount of facade damage) and a chunk of webbed concrete was promptly ripped loose. At the same time, Maybe-Chimera had managed to tear off the web obscuring his vision, and vengefully sought Ronan out amongst the debris.

 

 

 

The fight felt longer than it actually was.

Reluctant loyalty demanded that Adam stay and watch for the Widower. Common sense (and Aegis) demanded that he get out as fast as possible.

She ducked away, trying to get in touch with someone, the Veil, maybe Ironbee, and Adam retreated to cover. At first, it seemed as though the Widower could successfully keep Chimera occupied, prevent him from doing too much damage and from landing a hit. More cars were smashed, a motorbike got tossed aside like a toy, the Widower littered the ground and Chimera with more ditched web, and another streetlight crashed down.

At some point, the Widower got a web on Chimera’s arm, using it to jump back and forth out of reach and keep Chimera’s focus. Chimera was wielding a web-bound wedge of building like a mace, and the door of a Ford like a knight’s shield, lending the fight a strange medieval quality. One swipe of the concrete had forced the Widower to into a low combat roll, but the lapse of concentration cost him, and Chimera had grappled the line attached to his arm and yanked the vigilante off his feet.

Adam had something unfamiliarly akin to faith in the Widower’s abilities, but when Chimera hauled him forward and batted him aside full force with the car door, he felt his chest tighten. The sickening crunch of impact reached him first, then the thud of the Widower colliding with a vehicle and pitching forward onto the ground. Adam stood up, nerves sparking.

Chimera lunged forwards, and as the Widower started to rise, slammed the door down onto him, once, a second time, a third, and Adam could feel desperation searing through him, mixed with adrenaline and burning away the more logical urge to hide.

Aegis - _Blue_ \- ran into him, trying to shove him back into the shadows.

‘You can’t do anything!’ She tripped over him as she stood up, and muttered a curse. Adam reached for her wrist and missed, which was probably for his own good. She looked unwell, skin unusually pale and her movements disjointed, and he suspected she’d overtaxed her own considerable strength.

By the time they’d managed to untangle themselves and Adam had straightened up next to her, Chimera was crushing the Widower, his full weight (was this equivalent to his strength?) on the door, and Adam had a horrific sensation of helplessness.

The conversation on the rooftop they’d had that morning seemed like an age ago, and it hadn’t given Adam any clue as to how much damage the Widower would be able to take before it was irreparable. Before it would… kill him.

Blue stumbled. Adam caught her. A streak of blue light punched into the side of Chimera’s head, confusing and enraging him. His weight was dislodged, and the Widower stirred. He barely managed to crawl a couple of feet away before Chimera brought the edge of the door down on the middle of his back. Adam made an involuntary noise of horror, and Blue whimpered agreement.

With a single hand, Chimera grasped the Widower’s neck and lifted.

Adam knew, remembered, in vivid detail, how tall the Widower was, but Chimera lifted him until his dangling black-clad feet barely touched the ground, and pulled his arm back in an obvious pre-slingshot motion.

Blue yelled, and the force of the energy that exploded into Chimera threw him back at least ten feet, into the empty lane of the road.

For a moment, so brief Adam would have missed it if he’d blinked, Ronan Lynch dropped to his knees on the tarmac and swayed, his bloodied, Jacobean-tragedy face hauntingly conscious before he slumped forward.

Adam couldn’t breathe.

Blue passed out with a terrible kind of finality.

Adam couldn’t think, either, not least because Chimera was on his feet and moving back towards them with a graceless, purposeful stride.

He passed the fallen streetlight, and, wedging the car door on one side and himself on the other, finally levered it off his arm, the remnants of his sleeve disappearing with it. In his other hand, Adam saw a scrap of black fabric, the mask dragged off the Widower’s head and pulverised, now, into nothing.

He reached the Widower, next, and with a weary, almost dismissive motion, clutched one ankle and flung the Widower in the same direction as the Jeep had previously gone, straight into the jagged, demolished third floor of the offices across the street.

He was obviously aware of Adam’s presence, unpleasantly evident as the awkward, uneven stride turned in their direction.

Adam felt paralysed, sick with fear and grief. Was this what Gansey had felt, in those moments in Washington after Chimera had murdered dozens of people? And if it had been anything close… how had he ever been able to believe the monster was redeemable?

Adam lowered Blue’s head to the ground as gently as he could, and stood in front of her. He wouldn’t die without being afraid, but he’d always expected as much. At least he could buy her some time.

Chimera was close, a few metres or so away.

Adam wondered if it would hurt. Nearly everything did, he knew that all too well, but it didn’t make it any less frightening.

He thought about the Widower.

Was it really Lynch? Had it always been him?

It was unequivocally logical. It was unbearably obvious, in fact. But for the Widower to have meant Lynch twisted parts of Adam’s mind into shapes and ideas he couldn’t begin to understand.

Chimera drew his arm back to strike, and something loud and extremely flammable erupted over the side of his face. Adam flinched away, startled and alarmed, and caught sight of his saviour.

A gold plated entity resembling a miniature fighter jet hovered nearby, and as Adam backed up to where Blue lay and Chimera swatted at his burning hair with an infuriated bellow, it swooped sideways between them, blocking Chimera’s path. Adam crouched, gingerly looped his arms under Blue’s neck and her knees, and lifted her with some effort off the ground.

The drone, which Adam could only presume belonged to Ironbee, opened fire on the villain.

As Adam attempted to escape the area, he heard a helicopter pass overhead, and the world suddenly seemed to awaken around them. The plaintive wail of sirens returned, nearer and with greater force than before, and there was the squeal of tires down the street. Adam followed the noise, hoping the cavalry had some idea of what they were walking into.


	16. Nobody authorised this level of sass... or nudity.

Ronan wasn’t dead.

He judged this because one of the few things he actually liked to believe about death was that it was final. A wonderfully absolute void of sensation and awareness.

And if there was a single thing not lacking in his present state, it was sensation.

In particular, overpowering and all-consuming pain.

Admittedly, beyond that there wasn’t much at all. He couldn’t see or hear, and he wasn’t conscious of any taste or smell or significant feature of his environment.

It might have been the case that he was almost dead, but not quite, so at least one of his senses was still quantifying the circumstances. Unfortunately.

Over time, Ronan had become increasingly familiar with pain. However, there were still some things that escaped the dulling effect of prior experience. Bullet wounds, consistently, hurt to a inconceivable degree. Listening to Henry Cheng expound on the topic of technological progression was an unbearable torment. Thinking about his parents carried pain that escaped description.

Ronan had never felt his spine snap before. That was new.

He’d never felt his ribs crack inwards and stab through his own internal organs.

He’d never felt a piece of glass the size of a meat cleaver slice through his back so far he could feel it puncture his stom- no, wait, that _had_ happened. Or at least something similar.

Today had really just been a merry-go-round of suffering, as far as Ronan was concerned.

After a seemingly long period of boundless, formless pain, unconfined by the limits of Ronan’s flesh and blood and whatever the hell else might have been going on in the world he couldn’t see, hear, smell, or taste, he was forced to acknowledge that he was lying on something very sharp.

Or a variety of sharp things, all contending with fabric and flesh and winning. He also recognised, in an unpleasant, obtrusive kind of way, that he or the surfaces surrounding him were oddly wet.

Additional sensory information contrived to rouse him from a semi-conscious slumber. Without any reduction to the amount of pain engulfing his waking mind, his hearing delivered a repetitive and numbing bass line, an exaggerated heartbeat. His sight delivered a blurred out, fluctuating image of a grey surface broken with swaying, shaded bulbs and patches of water stains. He could taste nothing but blood.

Ronan had always intended, in a careless way, to die quickly. Not bloodlessly, and not painlessly… that would have been unrealistic. But at least quickly, without an ordeal of remorse and guilt.

Gansey would find out that he was the Widower. He’d probably never forgive Ronan, not fully, even in death, and Ronan would never have a chance to explain what he’d done, what he’d had to do.

Declan would be proven right, after all. Surprise of the motherfucking millennium. The revelation of Ronan’s civilian identity and his powers could endanger Matthew, if it was made public. If anyone reached his body before the Veil did.

His parents… He would have failed them. For being reckless. For dying too young. For losing sight of why he’d become the Widower in the first place. They might have been disappointed in him, if they weren’t already in nothingness.

He doubted it, though. They probably would have forgiven him, and that made it a thousand times worse.

Ronan felt his lungs for the first time since he’d woken, an automatic strain for breath, a gasp and the clearing of blood from his throat.

Something crossed the grey expanse, and the subtle crunch of glass punctuated the bass line. Ronan coughed again, and tried to open swollen eyes wide enough to see what had arrived.

A tenuous, blurred outline. Flickering at the edges. Maybe a dream.

By Ronan’s hip, if his hip was still where it was supposed to be. Grey, well-worn jacket, streaked with colour, and faded blue jeans.

_Adam_.

Carefully, he knelt, and his face came into slightly better focus. It hurt to look at him, for several reasons.

Adam wasn’t painfully attractive, by any stretch of the imagination, but Ronan had for so long been unreasonably taken by Parrish’s curious features that seeing them, recognising him, promised a unique brand of pain, something like exhilaration mixed with awe mixed with despair.

Ronan had long ago labelled this as an absurd, masochistic, torturous and addictive kind of hope.

Dark circles under the eyes. Uneven splashes of freckles. Lacklustre hair. The slight curve in a previously-broken nose. The way his eyes were quietly divine, the way his expression tended, as now, to be agonisingly unreadable.

‘Oh.’ Adam observed softly, and his voice broke. ‘God.’

Ronan felt, or imagined he could feel, Adam’s hand under his head. His mouth and trachea were full of blood, and when Adam withdrew his hand, it was covered with it.

Ronan coughed again, turning his face away. He didn’t want Adam to see, but he also hoped, desperately, that he wouldn’t leave.

He remembered the fight. He remembered losing. And Blue trying to save his life.

He summoned enough air to whisper; ‘Sargent?’

He couldn’t believe he could speak. Adam couldn’t seem to believe it either.

‘Safe.’ He answered softly. The air hummed around them. Ronan felt a breeze on his cheek.

Adam continued, studying him; ‘We need to go. There are people searching.’ He replaced his hand underneath Ronan’s neck, and apparently unsympathetic to Ronan’s near-death condition, started to pull his shoulders off the ground. Ronan protested with a series of wracking coughs and undignified shudders, crowned with one withering and watery glare.

‘You’ll heal.’ Adam said curtly. Ronan disagreed, but Adam’s voice alone was a luxury. He added; ‘There are pieces of glass in your back. Should I take them out, or can you stand?’

Ronan coughed, once, trying to tip his head to one shoulder for some discretion. His head throbbed, and awareness closed in around him. He thought; _finally_.

He registered Adam’s hand curved under his jaw, thumb over his cheek, just before he passed out.

 

 

 

When he stirred, again, through a fog of pain clouding his vision and impairing his movement, he was on his knees, somewhere different, and darker.

Parrish was unnervingly close, trying to straighten up with Ronan slumped awkwardly on his shoulder. It was a shock that Parrish had even been able to lift him, let alone carry him out to what seemed to be some small, back alley parking lot behind the building.

The shapeless pain began to reassert itself into distinct sources, varieties of stinging and stabbing and aching and searing, and Ronan wheezed faintly.

Perceiving this limited remonstration, Parrish breathlessly retorted; ‘You’re really heavy.’

Ronan didn’t answer.

In addition to broken bones, puncture wounds, glass still lodged between his ribs and scratching his spine, what felt like a collapsed lung and a blindingly unpleasant concussion, he was suddenly, frighteningly aware that he didn’t have his mask on.

Did this mean…? Did Adam…?

_Christ_.

He instinctively tried to get his feet on the ground, but every embarrassing thing he’d ever done in the mask was bleeding into his chaotic, disordered thoughts. Offering to walk Adam home, and being resoundingly rejected with true Parrish derision. Falling through his window, furious and semi-paralysed. Going after him into Kavinsky’s trap. The idiotic search for his stupid backpack.

Today, _mother of God_ , the humiliation of today.

Adam knew, Adam _knew_ , God help Ronan, it was the end.

Parrish was hauling him along with the grim determination of a soldier, and gradually Ronan found that he could assist with forward momentum to a small degree, if he fixed most of his concentration on blocking out the mind-numbing pain and didn’t think about Adam.

Parrish must have been exercising his familiarity with numerous sketchy shortcuts across the neighbourhood, threading his way through narrow alleys, around dumpsters, through private carparks and dumpster cages. He hesitated briefly before they passed out into the open street, Ronan stumbling unsteadily over the pavement and then the road.

Adam warily scanned their surroundings as they crossed. It was busier here, cars still moving briskly in both directions, pedestrians rushing past, occasionally remarking on the noise and the danger of the nearby streets. It took a moment for Ronan to realise, uncertainly, that he was wearing Parrish’s jacket, with the the hood hooked up over his head for some semblance of disguise.

They managed to obtain the relative security of a thin lane between buildings, and Parrish paused behind a dumpster to ensure they weren’t being followed.

He was flagging, badly. Ronan could feel ragged breathing, and an additional, suppressed shiver that indicated how the worsening cold was affecting him.

He adjusted his grip, pulling Ronan ever closer and edging along the lane. He didn’t seem particularly certain that Ronan was actually conscious, and started sharply as Ronan tried to lift a little more of his weight off Adam’s shoulder. He was swiftly reminded that his spine was hardly functional, hissed and curled back over, despising his own frailty.

‘Nearly there.’ Parrish informed him, averting his gaze due to the unsettling proximity of Ronan’s head to his face.

Ronan didn’t think he’d started to heal yet. It felt like the blood was beginning to dry, so the bleeding must have slowed, but with his healing everything tended to get much worse before it got even slightly better, and with so much to handle all at once it would probably knock him out for a while.

He was avoiding the thought of all the flights of stairs and nosy, unpleasant neighbours between here and Parrish’s apartment, which he knew was Adam’s only possible target.

Where the fuck was the Veil? Where was Sargent? Why had Parrish come to get him, and what in the hell was he thinking of Ronan right now?

‘Parrish-’

Adam paused again, and Ronan momentarily thought it was a reaction to him, but they’d reached another street, and Adam was repeating his inspection before stepping out of the shadows. Ronan wondered what he was so anxious about. He didn’t seem to be worried about the casually curious gazes of the strangers who were striding past, or the drivers and passengers peering through windscreens.

Was Chimera still attacking? For fuck’s sake, was Parrish trying to drag him through streets messy with cops and media with a crazed madman superhuman still on the loose?

They quickly gained cover, but Parrish didn’t stop this time. The shivering was worse, and he’d paled slightly, which Ronan noticed as Adam spared him a guarded look.

A few more winding, grimy passages, and Parrish finally tipped against the bricks of one building, exhaustion sunk into his features and his breath a rapid gasp through clenched teeth. He slowly lowered Ronan to the ground, taking care to prevent him from slumping over.

‘Made it.’ He sounded palpably surprised. Ronan was sufficiently distracted by Adam leaning over him to respond without thinking.

‘You want to walk in like this?’

He felt his chest tighten automatically, hearing his own voice, coarse and recognisable in the dull silence. They must have been around the narrow side of Parrish’s building, because Ronan didn’t know this miserable little alley.

Parrish seemed drily detached when he looked over, as if he’d never seen Ronan Lynch before, as if the Widower was just some stranger he was helping with a flat tire on the side of the road. ‘Please. It’s more unusual for people living here to come home _not_ covered in blood.’

He settled on the ground with a sigh, and Ronan could practically see decades of accumulated filth adhering to his jeans. Somehow it was early evening, Ronan could feel the chill of the night approaching, and he figured Adam must have given up on getting to work. He looked, unsurprisingly, like anyone who had just been through a traumatic experience would look, but the fact that he didn’t look so far removed from that normally was only adding to Ronan’s frustration.

‘We could take the fire escape up.’ Parrish suggested, after careful deliberation. He glanced at Ronan. ‘If you can manage the ladder.’

The implication that he wouldn’t be able to manage the ladder combined with the creeping displeasure that he probably couldn’t manage the ladder to severely darken Ronan’s mood.

‘It’s just a fucking ladder.’ He said petulantly. Adam’s expression didn’t even flicker.

‘Alright.’ Parrish stood up, strode purposefully to the fire escape, and proceeded to be a good three feet too short to reach the ladder, even with an entertaining attempt to jump for it.

He came back looking troubled, and Ronan (after a couple of ineffectual attempts) loosened off one of his web shooters and pushed into Adam’s hand.

‘I don’t know how this works.’ He noted bluntly.

‘Physics, Parrish.’

‘I really don’t think so.’

Ronan was aware that it would have been more impressive to wield the thing himself, and that it was delectably appealing to fold his hands around Adam’s and demonstrate how to use it, but Adam was by no means incompetent in understanding his tech, and conserving his strength for mastering the ladder had become a priority.

Not to mention the fact that he was too scared to even contemplate Adam Parrish’s mind.

After a fairly thorough analysis of the mechanism, Parrish tried to fire it and missed by several feet. He was entirely besotted anyway, and when he finally caught the ladder and dragged it down he came back to Ronan with a slightly softened demeanour.

‘Did you design these?’

‘I built them.’ Ronan answered, involuntarily seeking insight into Parrish’s unapproachable thoughts. ‘Henry modified them.’

He supposed trying to conceal things from Parrish was pointless now. It had probably been pointless all along, and discovery had been inevitable. A small part of his brain was dedicated to searching Parrish’s attitude for any evidence of a favourable view, but the majority had already accepted the prognosis.

Adam didn’t reply.

It hurt, Jesus Christ, it hurt, _hurt_ , but with Parrish’s help Ronan got upright and onto the ladder.

He felt his flesh pull over glass and reopen. It didn’t bleed much, but enough that he suspected Parrish would need a new jacket.

He kept thinking, irritation escalating to anger, that this wasn’t how it was meant to go.

For Adam, the Widower would now be Ronan Lynch. He couldn’t pretend that saving people had ever been his intention, and he couldn’t pretend that socialising with Parrish had been some harmless community fraternisation.

So why would Ronan Lynch bother to save Adam Parrish? Why would Ronan ever have intervened in the first place? Why would he have returned? Why would he have approached Parrish for refuge when wounded?

He couldn’t answer the fucking questions. As an anonymous vigilante, _maybe_ , but not as Ronan Lynch. Ronan had other things, important things - not more important than Parrish, but decidedly _not_ Parrish - he wasn’t… he couldn’t…

And it wouldn’t matter anyway because Parrish wasn’t- was never-

The Widower had only meant something to Parrish in the sense that he was fascinating, scientifically.

Ronan could… he _could_ indicate that his protection was only ever an extension of Gansey’s concern. A favour. An indifferent necessity.

Ronan clawed his way onto the lowest platform of the fire escape and lay face down on the metal. He could feel pain erupting in sharp little bursts all along his vertebrae, winding up from beneath his ribcage and threatening to wrap itself around his throat and drag him from consciousness.

Parrish crawled up next to him, visibly suspicious about the stability of the fire escape, and equally unimpressed with Ronan’s immobility.

The trip upwards was awkward, faltering and painful. By the time they’d reached the reassuringly stable surface of the rooftop, Adam was practically white with strain and cold and Ronan’s head was a carnival of disembodied lights and sounds. Parrish left him by the half-packed scanner and went in search of something to pry open the webbed door, and it was simple for Ronan to lie still and watch needles of violet-flushed cloud recede gently towards the horizon as the sunset faded.

The healing must have finally started. He could feel a trail of stinging discomfort down his spine, gradually worsening. Parrish returned, replaced the scanner in his backpack, and pulled the blanket around Ronan before dragging him to his feet.

Adam’s apartment was only three floors down, and going downstairs was faster, if more precarious, than going up. It was only minutes before they were tripping, with mutual indignity, through Parrish’s door.

 

 

 

The first thing Ronan did was ditch the blanket. It fell around his feet as he caught the kitchen counter, struggling to stay standing.

He tried to remove the jacket, but Parrish had to intercede on his behalf, when he got stuck with one arm in and one arm out and fire burning through him and everything blanketed in a smothering haze. He landed on his knees, forehead pressed to the solidity of a kitchen cabinet.

‘Lynch.’ Adam’s voice was indistinct, but close. ‘Are you healing?’

Ronan groaned; ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘It doesn’t look like it.’

‘Christ, Parrish, sorry for the inconvenience.’

Something cold touched the back of his neck. He thought it was something frozen, for a moment, before he realised it was the palm of Adam’s hand.

It was actually something of a relief, given the sudden heat kick of an overworking metabolism, but Ronan felt obliged to snap viciously; ‘God fucking dammit that’s cold get it the fuck off me.’

Parrish withdrew, and when Ronan’s eyes stopped watering he was pleased to note that Adam had retrieved an extra sweater and was crouched in his periphery, rubbing his hands on the tops of his jeans. Alarmingly, his lips were actually blue under the buzzing overhead light. The kind of blue that suggested frostbite or death.

He looked shattered, and when Ronan recovered his wits enough to try and stand, he seemed to wake up, slightly, from a daze.

He pinched the shoulder of the suit, very lightly. ‘Does this thing have a zipper, or something?’

Ronan hit one of the teardrop sized silver spiders on his chest, loosening the fabric.

‘That’s useful.’ Adam remarked.

It was impossibly frustrating that he would be so calm about this. Ronan wasn’t calm. Ronan was losing his goddamn mind.

Questionable situation or not, Ronan was grateful to get rid of the outfit. Peeling it off dislodged several remaining chunks of glass, and Adam stepped back cautiously, apparently unperturbed by watching Ronan undress.

He used his foot to push the crumpled suit across the floor after Ronan stepped out of it, clearing an area of glass shards and splinters and brick dust.

‘You look like shit.’ He assessed smoothly. Ronan scowled and weakly gave him the finger.

Adam reached forward rather abruptly, and Ronan felt his fingers graze raw, bloodied skin and shivered. He’d always been comfortable with his appearance, and being stripped to his underwear in front of anyone else wouldn’t have registered as an event, but this was _Parrish_ , and Ronan was feeling a little leftover fragility from having his identity exposed against his will.

Undisturbed by Ronan’s preoccupations, Adam eased a chunk of glass out from between his ribs delicately, evoking a strangled growl. ‘Son of a bitch-’

‘Is this going to scar?’ Adam asked curiously, tracing the length of the laceration with his thumb. Ronan curled his fingers around the edge of the bench and forced a slow breath through his nose, overwhelmed by the unexpected touch and the violent, sparking pain of the injury. ‘It’ll ruin the tattoo.’

‘It’s nothing.’ He answered forcibly, and ground out a curse as Adam dug out more glass from closer to his spine.

‘This is-’ Adam paused, and even though Ronan couldn’t see him, the incessant functioning of his brain was practically audible. His head poked around Ronan’s tense arm, frowning intently at his chest.

If there’d been much blood left to spare in Ronan’s body he might have blushed. Or worse.

‘This is real deep.’ Adam observed, mostly to himself if the odd slip to colloquial grammar was any evidence. ‘Looks like it goes all the way through.’

He must have found the wound to Ronan’s stomach. After a moment of silent examination, he proceeded. Ronan heard him hiss as his fingers slipped on the wet glass, and before he could steel himself Adam had laid a hand on his ribcage and braced his weight there, fingers slotting between ribs in a way that made Ronan’s pain seem considerably more distant and ethereal compared to his cold, heavy touch.

Through a truly disquieting display of Parrish determination, he managed to pull the glass out, and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor with a low intake of breath. ‘How are you not dead?’

‘What happened to-’ Ronan gasped, a stab of pain through his stomach catching him off guard. ‘-to Sargent?’

He remembered seeing her faint, before he’d passed out the first time. He vaguely recalled Parrish reassuring him, but it was distant and uncertain, easily a dream.

‘The Veil.’ Parrish rubbed his eyes with a wrist uneasily. ‘The Veil sent a drone, and they picked her up. They were looking for you, too, but had to scramble.’

‘Chimera?’ Original or not, that thing had been a monster.

Adam shook his head. ‘Disappeared. Others came. Agency, maybe? Black cars and black suits.’

‘Huh.’

Adam had come to get him, singlehanded, out of a wrecked building. Faced with the police, or CIA, or whatever they’d been, Parrish had stupidly risked everything to cover up for him.

There was another pause, another silence. Ronan wanted to know what had happened, how Parrish had seen, or found out, or known. What he’d thought. What he’d felt. Ronan wanted (and simultaneously resisted with every fibre of his being) to ask him about the Widower.

Parrish asked; ‘Gansey doesn’t know?’

Ronan shook his head, aggrieved.

Adam’s exhale was soft, quiet… but not unkind.

‘So he knows about Henry.’

‘He knows.’

‘And Blue being Aegis.’

Ronan nodded.

Adam made a faint noise that was either scathing or amused or both.

‘Short superhero.’ He commented flatly.

‘Mm.’

Ronan was drifting. He wasn’t halfway done with the pain and the suffering, and he knew it, but the first round was enough to wipe him out. He needed a drink, and food that he strongly suspected Parrish wouldn’t have, and sleep that wouldn’t come easily.

He turned around and leaned on the counter, assuming Parrish was done with the surgery, and met an impassive stare.

‘What if I missed something?’

‘I guess I’m just gonna die then, thanks, Parrish.’

Adam rolled his eyes, moving out of programmed habit to fill a glass with water. ‘And Chimera?’

‘Probably isn’t Chimera.’ Ronan corrected reflexively, accepting the drink with only mild disappointment that it wasn’t hard liquor.

‘What do you think he wants?’

‘He doesn’t want anything. He’s crazy.’

‘Everyone wants something.’ Adam said bluntly, and Ronan almost winced. ‘Even if it’s something crazy.’

‘What do you want, then?’ Ronan tried to sound as sardonic as humanly possible to hide his disgustingly genuine curiosity.

Adam shrugged, but he answered without hesitation. ‘To get out of the city, I guess. Away from this-’ He gestured, sort of towards the window, but mostly encompassing the miserable contents of his apartment. Ronan scowled.

‘That is…’ He mustered all his remained sarcasm. ‘Truly progressive, Parrish. I am astounded.’

‘Fuck off.’ Adam frowned, without much heat. ‘What do you want?’

‘A field of daisies and a dodo that sings Kumbaya, what do you fucking think?’

‘I can’t imagine.’ Adam replied drily, emptying his own glass.

Ronan thought grimly; _I guarantee you can’t_.


	17. Would you like some banter with your emotional upheaval? Side order of existential crisis?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, so, so much to everyone reading. Everyone still reading, in particular, your fortitude is blowing my mind.   
> To everyone who has left kudos and commented, you are angels (or whatever divine/sublime form takes your fancy). It's an honour to know you have spent some of your free time on this brainchild of mine.

Adam didn’t know what to think. He reminded himself that it was cowardice not to think about unpleasant things, repeatedly, but it didn’t make logic any more forthcoming.

The Widower was gone. Adam had never fully appreciated how easy it had been until it was abruptly, painfully difficult.

And Ronan Lynch was dripping blood on his kitchen floor, a patchwork of bruises and cuts and celtic pale skin. A razor-sharp sneer, and shock-blue eyes.

He was resilient, Adam couldn’t fault him on that. How he’d survived the fight was one thing, probably attributable to regenerative capacity and genetic fortitude, but getting back to the apartment with a square of glass lodged the whole way through his abdomen was another. It was incredible that it hadn’t killed him, let alone that he’d managed to walk back, and climb the ladder, and _talk_ …

That didn’t help Adam with the problem of _what_ was in his apartment.

Lynch was a different creature entirely to the Widower. Adam wasn’t sure how to understand it. He wasn’t sure what to do about it - except that there was still some semi-state of loyalty or obligation between them… and something else, to Adam’s mind…attachment, perhaps, to an odd friendship. His own childish unwillingness to relinquish the Widower to realms of distrust and uncertainty.

The Widower, though. Not Lynch. How could Lynch and the Widower be the same? The Widower was… Why hadn’t Adam thought about this before? The Widower was hardly approachable. Neither was Lynch. The Widower was crass and unapologetic, and so was Lynch.

But the Widower had been something of a known quantity, comprehensible, if not predictable.

Lynch was _not_. For starters, he was a vigilante in his spare time. That wouldn’t have been quite as unnerving if he hadn’t clearly and effectively been concealing that from Gansey, all this time. Gansey, the guy who made Nikola Tesla’s approach to research and oddity look laid-back and disinterested.

Lynch’s loyalty to Gansey was potentially the single most significant and redeeming feature of his personality. Either he was insincere (which seemed unlikely given that he spent all his time counter-pretending that he didn’t care) or even that wasn’t strong enough to prevent him from lying.

There were other, troubling implications of their conversation. Gansey had known the identities of Aegis and Ironbee (Void, too, even before Adam had described him) the whole time they’d been friends. Blue and Henry had been in on the secret. Lynch, too, as well as burying a few of his own.

Was it the prevailing opinion that Adam would have been too stupid to ever notice what was going on? Or that he wasn’t well-adjusted or trustworthy enough to be told?

Part of Adam wanted to be overpoweringly offended by the whole thing.

A greater part was just tired, tired from the day, from the lack of sleep over months preceding it, from trying to manage money and school and nearly being murdered by people with superpowers, from the knowledge that he had a shift in the morning and one afternoon to finish an essay on Fermi’s paradox. Interesting work, but not 48 hours worth crammed into six.

There was also a cold, unsympathetic voice (unsurprisingly reminiscent of his father’s) in his head reminding him how great a piece of evidence this was that trusting anyone was essentially asking for disappointment.

Lynch was busying himself with a hard-jawed, glassy-eyed stare across the room, as Adam deposited broken glass in the sink and carefully washed his hands of blood.

Blue spoke to him, fought alongside him as if they were friends. She must know, even if Gansey didn’t. And Henry… Henry always seemed to know more than he revealed.

It wasn’t as though Adam could really claim the moral high ground. He had willingly interacted with the Widower without demanding knowledge of his identity, and with full awareness of his responsibility for numerous deaths. More than that, Adam had repeatedly told himself that his actions were motivated by a sense of obligation - a legitimate _state_ of obligation, arguably still present - and this rather eliminated his right to protest the Widower’s behaviour on the basis of… betrayal?

This kind of ethical (and social) query was exactly the kind of thing Adam might have taken before Gansey, given a conducive lull in conversation.

To further the dubious nature of his bitterness, how could he demand from Gansey, or Blue, or Henry, a degree of unrestricted honesty that he’d never personally adhered to himself?

He was absentmindedly searching the freezer for food when Lynch pushed off the bench behind him, suddenly and forcefully enough to lurch into the far wall. He righted himself with one hand, and used it as a tentative source of balance in order to negotiate his way toward the bathroom.

Adam returned his gaze to the freezer, and after a moment he heard the distinctive groan and creak of the pipes as Lynch started the shower. It was too late, and presumably pointless, to warn him about the lack of hot water, so Adam settled for digging out frozen beans and sausages and attempting to piece together a half-decent meal.

The shower ran for only about ten minutes, but Lynch didn’t reappear for another twenty. Adam had cooked the sausages and a meagre amount of rice. He’d need to shop tomorrow after work, and given that he had no idea how long the Widower - Lynch - was going to be here, he’d probably need extra food.

Lynch emerged, pausing weakly in the doorframe. He was still only in underwear, and Adam didn’t understand how he wasn’t freezing, but sensibly declined to ask. With most of the blood gone, crisply delineated slashes of red and blotches of green-black were devastatingly stark against broad stretches of white marble, and he looked dangerously ill. He leaned heavily on the wall to make his way back over, and accepted the plate of food Adam offered him with indifferent hunger.

He devoured it within three minutes in spite of his apparent fragility. It might have been faster, if he hadn’t been wincing on the odd occasion as some bone bent back into place and mended itself.

It would have been difficult to watch… if all of Adam’s attention hadn’t been occupied trying to superimpose the Widower suit back onto his frame, trying to test the idea that they were the same person, even when he knew the only logical conclusion was that they were.

It was still early, and Adam knew he needed to take the opportunity to study, but Lynch was obviously in no condition to travel without time for recuperation.

‘You can take the bed.’ Adam offered politely, carefully stacking the empty plates by the sink.

He wasn’t sure if politeness was the correct approach in this situation, but it felt like a natural recourse so he stuck with it.

‘Don’t martyr yourself, Parrish, I can sleep on the sofa.’ Lynch smiled, cold and hard and insincere.

‘You won’t fit on the sofa.’

‘Neither will you. Neither will anyone with legs.’

Adam considered his defiant glare cautiously. This acerbic, borderline vicious wit was the intersection of the Widower, someone he trusted, even felt that he knew, and Ronan Lynch, someone who remained out of reach, undefinable and unrelatable, someone who made Adam feel… not scared, exactly, but vulnerable in a way that he couldn’t understand.

Adam had foolishly convinced himself that he knew the extent of his own vulnerabilities, but apparently he’d been wrong.

‘Okay. Whatever.’ He moved over to the living room cupboard to find a clean sheet, and only succeeded in finding an old checkerboard quilt. He returned with it anyway, uncomfortably conscious that it was likely to be a source of great disdain to someone like Lynch. He spread it across the sofa cushions, biting the inside of his cheek.

‘I’m running out of non-bloodstained linen.’ He admitted reluctantly, as Ronan slowly moved over.

‘That must be so terrible for you.’ Lynch said snidely, but he hardly acknowledged the blanket as he settled gingerly on the sofa and folded it around his frame.

Adam retired to his bedroom, leaving Lynch to watch television, and tried to fix his waning attention on his work.

The Widower had stayed in the apartment before. Adam had even slept, as reliably as he ever did, without experiencing any doubt about his own safety. The soft hum of the television didn’t usually bother him, because Noah normally kept it on until the small hours of the morning. And he’d fallen asleep at Monmouth before, with Lynch nearby - Lynch before, or rather, Lynch proper.

Probably it was the turmoil of the day that kept Adam awake, but leaving Lynch to sleep in the main room made him irrepressibly uneasy. Ronan wasn’t in fighting shape, and he’d be an easy target for anything that came through the apartment door, without giving Adam a chance to intervene (even with the minuscule odds that he’d be of any assistance). 

When he’d numbed his brain by hammering out the first two sections of his essay, he used a trip to the bathroom to ensure that Lynch was asleep, moved his books to the living room floor, and within a few minutes he’d drifted to sleep.

 

‘Parrish.’ And then louder. ‘ _Parrish_.’

Adam woke up with the kind of flail that bad horror movies perfected in the 90s. He cleared his throat defensively.

‘What? Ronan?’

‘What are you doing?’

Adam answered with scorn honed to a knife point. ‘I _was_ sleeping, asshole.’

‘Why the fuck am I on the couch if you’re gonna sleep on the floor?’

‘I honestly have no idea.’ Adam answered, and tried to curl up again.

‘Parrish.’

‘What?’ Exasperation and exhaustion brought Adam’s volume up a few notches, startling himself.

‘Where’s Noah?’

Adam felt a nervous surge of energy that dissipated as rapidly as it had arrived. ‘I don’t know, Lynch, he’s probably at your house.’

‘What is it with that kid?’ Ronan continued, and Adam lowered his forehead to the floor with a loud and beleaguered sigh.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s strange.’

‘You’re a genetically superpowered vigilante, Lynch.’

‘Sure, but Noah is _strange_. C’mon, Parrish, what’s up with him?’

Adam sighed, again, but relented. ‘Noah is- Noah is like a mythical creature. He’s basically a unicorn, but with more glitter.’

‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re saying.’

‘It’s called sleep deprivation, you dick.’

‘Don’t call me dick. Dick doesn’t like it.’

‘Oh for-’

‘Fine, go back to sleep, if you’re gonna be so fucking precious.’

 

 

 

Adam overslept. He had surreal, poorly remembered dreams about caves filled with monsters, and woke up at half six, leaving him half an hour to get ready and reach work. There was light spilling in from the window, highlighting in minute detail the little heap of bloodied clothing against the wall, streaks of blood on the floor and counter, and the motionless form dwarfing the sofa.

Lynch had uncurled during the night, pushing back the blanket. He was sprawled along his stomach, one leg loosely dropped off the edge of the sofa and the other extended off the cushions and out into the air. His head was pillowed on one folded arm, tipped towards where Adam was slowly, awkwardly sitting up, but he was obviously asleep. Evidence of his injuries was beginning to fade, and Adam was freshly impressed. Aside from a greenish hue around one eye and a crescent of broken skin over his nose, his face had mostly healed, and the remnants only served to underline the intimidating ferocity of his features.

It was a struggle to find clean clothes, but Adam limited himself to a single slice of toast, so he was adequately prepared to leave within fifteen minutes of waking. At this point he hesitated, unwillingly nervous, a few feet from the end of the sofa.

Waking Lynch was a more reckless action than any he would usually attempt, but he was confronted, again, with the irrational sensation that to leave Ronan asleep was to leave him vulnerable.

He was tossing up between throwing something at Lynch from a distance, and turning the television volume up irritatingly high, when he was distracted by the violently enflamed red stripes and bands of flesh where he’d removed glass yesterday. They were definitely improved, but not to the degree that the bullet wound had been after one night, and persisted in interrupting the curves and angles of the intricate tattoo. Perhaps the extent of the Widower’s - Lynch’s - injuries was delaying the process.

With an unimpeded view, Adam could begin to distinguish the shapes that tangled together in the tattoo, a wing here, a celtic knot there, a beak, a blade, a tree, a claw, a cross, a -

‘Wh’t th’ hell d’you w’nt?’ Lynch grumbled, bafflingly able to produce a sentence almost completely devoid of vowels.

Adam answered instantly; ‘I’m going to work.’

Lynch lifted his head back, and then up slightly so he could actually see, and assessed Adam with an expression of exhaustion that Adam wasn’t sure he’d ever seen outside of a mirror.

‘W’rk.’ He repeated, grimacing. ‘R’ght.’

Adam nodded once, and after a futile attempt to think of something else to say, he simply left, locking the door behind himself.

He had ten minutes to get across town, and with traffic, he was bound to be late. After missing last night’s shift he was already in trouble, and this would undoubtedly add to it. 

Somewhere, streets behind him, was the mess Chimera had left (definitely Chimera, although certainly older and clearly deranged). Unless the unsettling CIA figures had managed to contain him, he was still at large somewhere, and Adam couldn’t help but think of Gansey’s inevitable horror upon finding out what happened. Given that Ironbee’s drone had arrived, and Gansey was supposedly with Henry, it was more than likely that he already knew.

Lynch’s bitterness during the conversation in the auditorium struck a note of logic, now. If Gansey came back, found out what happened, and believed that Chimera had some salvageable humanity left, it wasn’t difficult to imagine him pursuing the damn thing. Possibly Lynch had foreseen this, possibly he just understood how risky Gansey’s fascination with supers in general was, what with his firsthand experience.

Adam found himself dwelling on the auditorium, on Lynch’s gift of chocolate, and his whole, (apparently) inexplicable presence at school that day. And even earlier, Lynch hauling Adam up off the floor of the bathroom and goading him, despite knowing perfectly well what had happened with Void. His disgust at Adam’s initial attempts to make conversation in the BMW, after the Widower’s first rescue. His persistent and undeniable dislike for Adam’s company.

How, then, could the Widower’s (admittedly stilted) expressions of concern have been genuine?

And why was Adam so uncompromisingly, irrationally indignant that they weren’t?

What had possessed him to think he’d befriended a random stranger with a genetic mutation? It was unrealistic. It was _absurd_.

He almost faceplanted into the automated doors of the supermarket, and had to blink a few times before his eyes adjusted to the artificial light and gleaming white floors.

It was primarily because of this that he didn’t see Sherry coming at him until they’d pretty much collided.

‘My goodness!’ She wrapped both arms around him and squeezed, and Adam instinctively cringed. ‘You poor dear! We’re so glad you’re okay!’

 _Uh oh_.

Naturally, the story of what had happened with Riccio had gotten around, but the excitement had died down pretty quickly and this probably wasn’t related. Adam could only imagine that his absence yesterday had been interpreted as a sign that he’d finally been murdered on the street somewhere, and the team had reacted accordingly. When Sherry released him and pulled back slightly to stare sympathetically at his (red) face, he saw two other staff members over her shoulder with matching indications of shock and disbelief.

‘I’m sorry, I got stuck-’

‘Oh, dear! It’s okay, my goodness, we understand, Mr. Healey will understand, of course.’

She was still squeezing his upper arms, and he felt suddenly, incredibly abashed by her sincere joy that he’d survived. Still blushing, he nodded faintly.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

‘You’re such a sweet boy - my goodness, when I first saw-’ She waved an arm and trailed off into an overwhelmed silence.

Adam looked over her shoulder again, still slightly bewildered at the strength of this sentiment. Another coworker, an extremely skinny girl with over-bleached hair and elaborate eye makeup, several years older than Adam and never a particular fan of his mild attitude towards work, stepped forward and offered her own feelings.

‘That was batshit.’ She declared, adding with a gentle tuck of flat, colourless hair behind one ear. ‘You don’t seriously know the Widower?’

Adam flinched, and struggled to recover his wits.

‘Uh… no, I don’t.’

He remembered Riccio recounting the story, with due appreciation to the Widower, but absolutely no reference to Adam’s interaction with him. This was… unexpected.

‘But he talked to you, right?’ She pivoted on one heel and gestured, obstinately, to the television hanging in the corner over the front windows. While it was primarily used to display the security camera feeds when they opened, the staff customarily watched morning programs when they were preparing for the day and the manager wasn’t around to stop them.

There was some local news segment playing, discussing the weather and tossing about a few distinctly unfunny jokes concerning the performance of the local basketball team. Adam felt his stomach sink, even as he mechanically moved forward to clock on and deposit his bag in the staff room, and finally, one of the newsreaders directed his gaze to the camera and recited, with an abrupt change of countenance from unconvincing laughter to unconvincing seriousness, the day’s headlines.

Adam froze at the lines “VIGILANTE CLASH DEMOLISHES MIDTOWN INFRASTRUCTURE - HUNDREDS OF LIVES THREATENED” and the accompanying footage, a montage of superbly unsteady video images from different angles of the building collapsing, Chimera tossing the bus, and puzzlingly placed at the conclusion, video of himself and the Widower by the train carriage, retrieving a long-limbed gentleman with the misfortune of being filmed during a bout of understandable hysteria.

The cast of the news program began trading supposition on the vigilantes involved. “WHO IS REALLY TO BLAME?”

Everything was a fuzzy, hostile blur to Adam. He felt painfully unprepared for this, embarrassingly and frighteningly inadequate. He might only be recognisable to his coworkers now, but this was _public_. This was _horrifying_. There would be interviews with witnesses, potentially more footage, and the risk that someone who vaguely knew him would volunteer that information to someone with power, and Adam’s solitude, his _security_ , would be finished.

And after that, where would Gansey and the others be?

Perhaps Gansey’s choice had been the right one. Maybe Adam Parrish was nothing more, now that he knew, than a liability.

 

 

 

Ronan, unusually, went back to sleep, at least until the neighbour started playing Eminem at an infuriating volume. When he eventually got up, it was only to fume and poke through Parrish’s depressingly empty cupboards. He’d left half a loaf of bread out, and made an effort to clean the countertop, although a small selection of broken glass in the sink and the damaged suit on the floor belied the cleanliness.

The limited space of the apartment was only salvaged from being cramped by a lack of furniture. The counters were topped with ugly, peeling vinyl, the cabinets were uneven and dented, and the carpet and sofa shared an aged, untrustworthy texture. Ronan failed to dissuade himself from imagining Adam’s hours here, studying, reading, probably being as gently bemused by his brother as Ronan always was.

He nudged open the bedroom door, and found the old familiar scene undisturbed. Parrish’s bed, metal frame slightly bent from Ronan’s previous visit, not so much made as absently straightened. The desk, lopsided from the weight of books stacked to one side and threatening to collapse, and the scanner on the other. There was a chest of drawers on the wall by the head of the bed, cleared on top except for a lamp and a library copy of Kierkegaard.

Quietly, Ronan withdrew.

The living room was equally sparse. The sofa, and crumpled quilt. More of Parrish’s books across the floor, mostly chemistry, and an open notebook filled with Adam’s small and orderly handwriting, equations, annotations. He’d brought the blanket from his bed, and a pillow, but they’d already been folded up and placed in a corner. Aside from the outdated and slightly fuzzy television, there was nothing else in here either.

No photographs, no toys. No evidence of where little Parrish slept or amused himself. There wasn’t even a bookcase or a side table.

Ronan sat on the lumpy sofa and ate the rest of the bread, smeared with strawberry jam.

Maybe the Parrishes were orphans. But Adam wasn’t eighteen, surely, so he wasn’t able to be Noah’s guardian.

Hell, it wasn’t like Declan had been eighteen when he’d threatened to demolish anyone who tried to take Matthew away from them. And it wasn’t like Ronan was eager to go poking through Adam’s family history. He didn’t give a damn how Parrish chose to live.

But without a Parrish currently inhabiting the apartment, it did have a distinct lack of charm.

He passed the time leafing through Adam’s notes and wondering where he’d found the willpower to go to his tedious day job. Scheduled work was off-putting enough to Ronan’s sensibilities, without adding the horrors of customer service. He suppressed a recurring concern for Parrish’s wellbeing, reminding himself that the Veil should have taken care of the Chimera lookalike by now.

When someone knocked on the door, Ronan ignored it. Adam had a key, and Ronan didn’t want to speak to anyone else.

The knock came again, patient and restrained.

The third time, it was accompanied by a soft, but plaintive plea.

‘I’m begging you, don’t leave me out here.’

With intentional indolence, Ronan stood up, stretched, and walked to the door.

Henry Cheng, short and yet powerfully disparaging, crossed the threshold so fast he practically stood on Ronan’s feet. He closed the door behind himself with a concerned look.

‘Literally a superhero-’ He protested fervently ‘-and I still believe I was likely to be murdered coming up those stairs.’

Against his better judgement, Ronan smirked.

Cheng was unfazed by his lack of attire. He inspected the marks of Ronan’s fight with idle curiousity.

‘I do hope those are close to disappearing.’ Cheng remarked pleasantly. ‘Because it will be a difficult task explaining where you got them to the Third otherwise.’

Ronan made a dismissive noise.

Cheng stooped over and plucked the suit off the floor with a grimace. ‘Now that is simply tragic. Where is your companion?’

Ronan scowled, but Henry was blissfully absorbed in his own technology.

‘Have you tracked the target?’

Cheng frowned, slightly, but it was hard to say if it was a response to the question or the state of the Widower suit.

‘Unfortunately I lost him on the Fourteenth. I’m not entirely sure how, as he was leaving quite the trail of destruction, but I was inadvertently trapped…’ He shuddered delicately. ‘… in nature.’

‘Fucking hell, Cheng, what’s the point of you sticking your nose in everywhere if you can’t find one damn target?’

Henry softly, and fearlessly, tutted at him.

‘There are complications.’ He continued mildly. ‘Mr. Dittley and his team attempted to extract you as well as Blue, but were interrupted.’

He waited until after Ronan had snorted to continue, glibly. ‘Parrish behaved quite heroically, I gather. He coped altogether astonishingly well with yesterday’s series of events. Although Gansey is, er… Well, he’s…’

‘Overwrought.’ Ronan finished sardonically.

Cheng smiled serenely. ‘Such as it is.’


	18. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkably sarcastic people, to see if they could become something more. (They can, but only sarcastically).

The initial horror caused by the news broadcast gradually wore away. Aside from Adam’s three coworkers, nobody spared him a second glance all morning, and he regained quiet confidence in the strength of his own obscurity.

Other concerns pressed at the periphery of his thoughts, demanding attention. Had Blue recovered? Had Gansey returned? Had he heard about Chimera (by necessity from her, as the media clearly hadn’t made any progress in identifying him)? Did Henry and Blue know about Lynch? If they did, was concealing his powers from Gansey solely for the survival of their friendship, or was there another motive behind it?

Would Lynch be gone by the time Adam got home? Was that even possible, when he didn’t have clothing, or a mask to go with his suit? Would he have seen the footage, and the catastrophising of the local news, and how would he react?

If it had been the Widower, Adam might have hazarded a guess, but he couldn’t fathom Lynch, and retrospection had tainted even his memories of the Widower with uncertainty.

Ronan Lynch had leapt off buildings, fought strangers, saved people, saved _Adam_ … He’d risked his life to confront Void, and he’d killed Joseph Kavinsky, someone he’d not much earlier attended school with, in the same place- the same _room_ as Adam.

Adam was troubled by unbidden memories of Kavinsky’s aggression and brutality, threats and demonstrations of violence, and his crude jokes, twisted at the time and suddenly cast in a different, disturbing light.

Had Kavinsky known about Lynch, as Lynch had known about him?

And why had Adam been there? He’d questioned it at the time, but half-remembered references to new friends, old friends, or some cruder terms of relationship, now suggested that Void had known more about the Widower than Adam had. He was even more reluctant to consider what Kavinsky’s reasons for choosing him as captive had been, and why the Widower had still shown up.

The deaths, what Gansey called murders, hadn’t weighed so heavily on Adam’s conscience before now. He’d rashly considered himself free of guilt and responsibility, reasoning that the Widower’s actions had always belonged to the Widower, in a self-contained, unaffected way. It had seemed improbable that the Widower would allow his behaviour to be influenced by Adam or anyone else.

Lynch, though… He was so closely tied with Gansey and Blue and Henry and even Noah that Adam couldn’t begin to separate his actions from their influence. He was vicious and intimidating and also, horribly, alarmingly young. Unpredictable. Uncertain. Fallible.

Of course the Widower had been fallible, but it had never worried Adam. Perhaps because he’d assumed that the person under the mask was capable of enacting his version of justice with complete faith in himself, and now he doubted.

He lacked familiarity with Lynch. He didn’t know Lynch. But he felt, from compiled and sifted memories of Lynch with Gansey, and the bird, and Noah, and himself, that Ronan was fickle and moody and so unutterably human that he couldn’t just _be_ the Widower without also being burdened by the consequences.

Adam saw the bright orange Camaro arrive while he was still behind a register.

The Widower had said his powers were genetic. So Lynch’s father, perhaps, had been the previous Widower? But Gansey had said Ronan had brothers, and that could mean that there were more people like him, unbelievably powerful and hidden from the public eye. Or it could be a recessive genetic inheritance, and Ronan was unique. But his siblings might still have the potential to pass along the genetic code to their children, and Ronan to his, over time (if they were inclined) multiplying the possibility of a reoccurrence exponentially.

Was it a purely random mutation? Adam couldn’t see how that was possible. The specific attributes were so finely and abruptly different from the average human as to practically appear designed… and that begged the question of who, exactly, Ronan Lynch’s father (or grandfather, or great grandfather, to stretch the imagination) was, and what had happened to him.

Adam intentionally delayed any thought of Gansey until he’d finished his shift, collected a small selection of groceries, and left the bright, colourless building.

It was colder today, and without his good jacket he was already on the verge of shivering.

Gansey started towards him as soon as he’d emerged.

‘Adam!’

He wasn’t sure why Gansey bothered to call out. He wouldn’t have been childish (or stupid) enough to try and avoid the meeting, even if he’d wanted to, and he definitely didn’t.

Gansey’s hair was unevenly messy, and he was wearing the glasses he commonly avoided in public. His voice held a startling note of desperation, edged with guilt. Adam shook the hand he offered, further surprised to find that Gansey’s relief that they were still on friendly terms seemed even to exceed his own.

‘Thank God you’re alright. I can’t-’ He paused, calmed himself, and continued; ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so incredibly sorry.’

Adam was sufficiently flustered by the degree of his warmth and remorse to gracelessly attempt to change the subject.

‘How was your trip?’ He asked awkwardly.

‘Frankly, horrific.’ Gansey replied. He pushed one hand through his hair nervously, increasing the lopsided angle. ‘And… No. Not pointless. Bad, though.’

‘Bad news?’ Adam asked blankly. Gansey hadn’t been with his family, he knew as much from Lynch’s laconic commentary at school, but he had no real idea of the purpose of his disappearance. Maybe it was, after all, Veil related.

Gansey was voicelessly trying to convey his dismay with head-shaking and rapid blinking, and Adam quickly tried to salvage his sensibilities.

‘How is Blue?’

This was a poor choice of question, and only succeeded in sending Gansey into a greater spiral of anxiety. ‘She’s… Fine, she says, but I’m not allowed near the doctors. And this is- Jesus, if I had told you beforehand- And with the Widower, no less, and if she says it’s Chimera - if you say it’s Chimera, then- And I can’t find Ronan… though he’s probably just off doing burnouts somewhere, but if he’d just answer the damn phone- and now Henry’s trying to suppress the media, but we’ve got no clue who showed up at the crucial moment…’

He sighed, leaned heavily against the side of the Pig, and turned mournfully wide eyes on Adam.

‘I wanted to tell you.’ He said wretchedly, and Adam found it easy to believe him. ‘I thought it would be better coming from us. But I- I hesitated. I’m sorry.’

He nodded, appreciative but silent, and waited for Gansey to continue.

‘I was hoping you might come back to Monmouth.’ He cleared his throat. ‘To the Veil, if you’re willing.’

Despite wariness, Adam sensed that Gansey wasn’t preparing him to be gently dismissed from his social circle. He nodded, and watched relief dawn across Gansey’s features.

‘Yes. But-’ Gansey’s face fell again. Adam lifted his backpack on two fingers and let it spin slowly in the air. ‘-groceries.’

‘Oh. I could drive you to the apartment, if you like.’

Adam hesitated. It was a risk, but it wasn’t as though Gansey had ever actually been inside his apartment. And he was sure he could effectively ask Gansey to wait in the car. After all, he was genuinely uncomfortable with the possible comparison between home and Monmouth. He could go in, put the groceries away, and if Lynch was still there, warn him. He’d have to prolong the writing of the essay again, unfortunately, but under the circumstances…

‘Okay. Thanks.’

Gansey gleefully flung open the front door of the Pig.

 

 

 

Lynch had gone by the time Adam got upstairs, and so had the suit. He put the groceries away, changed out of his uniform, and returned to the street. Gansey leaned across to push the door open for him.

It started to rain as they drove, to a building in the older district of the city, not too far from Monmouth itself. It was tall and narrow, of rust red brick and stone painted dark green, wedged between similar buildings on either side, with broad aged windows and delicate but time-worn mouldings. The ground floor had wood framed shop windows, printed in swirling white script with the words “Foxway Psychics: Most trusted readers of Tarot, Palms, Auras, Numerology and Astrology.” The bottom windows were hung with glimmering purple and silver fabrics, and those higher up with a variety of different and occasionally uncomplementary colours.

Gansey parked around the corner, and they both stepped out into the drizzle. Most of the trip had been spent in silence, pensive on Adam’s part and jittery on Gansey’s, but his mood improved immeasurably as they walked to the psychic’s. The streets were partially paved, and the pavement was wide and clean, and even Adam felt the gentle, picturesque atmosphere of the neighbourhood. Tourists with bright umbrellas and iPhones lingered on the sidewalk with admiration, despite the stormy gray sky, taking pictures of the old stone buildings and the dark roads swirling with rain, quaint curiosity shops under apartment buildings and little patisseries and sandwich cafes.

Gansey ascended the stairs in front of “Foxway Psychics” and pushed open the shop door, waving Adam inside with an encouraging smile.

For a cover, the shop was certainly elaborate. The front room had a wooden floor, spread in places with rugs of (mostly) sombre colour. Pieces of mismatched furniture filled the room, a hall table of different height on either side of of the door, one leather sofa with wooden arms, one fabric sofa smattered with cushions, an inviting armchair covered with crocheted blankets, a low coffee table spread with unlit candles and odd paperback novels, and a bookcase with more of the same, in addition to a typewriter and an old fedora and other aged objects.

On one side of the room there was an ornate reception-type desk and a chair several degrees too short for it, currently occupied by an attractive woman who was talking dreamily on the phone. She merely glanced at them and raised one viciously nailed finger in acknowledgement, without pausing in her smooth, rapid delivery.

There was an archway in the far wall which led through curtains to a narrow hallway, and that’s where Gansey led Adam, dipping his head graciously to the woman.

Adam was forced to admit that he didn’t remember any of these things from his previous visit with the Veil. The plastered walls, patchy in places, the uneven floorboards, paintings and tapestries, and comfortable furniture all seemed a far cry from what he remembered of the clinical, gleaming surfaces, utilitarian design and impressive technological array of Ironbee’s lab.

He refrained from mentioning this to Gansey, who navigated with enviable certainty through several more curtained doorways and up a narrow flight of stairs, until he pushed into a wide sitting room and announced proudly; ‘I found him!’

Adam was suddenly confronted with the attention of a room full of people. Almost instantly, an unfamiliar voice complained; ‘Oh god, he’s definitely _that_ one.’

Before he had time to fully process that comment, he saw Blue start up sharply from where she was sitting, an expression of half-irritation, half-concern on her face. But before she could speak, Gansey leaned away from his side with a noise of annoyance.

‘Damn, Ronan, where have you been?’

Adam didn’t hear the answer, because he immediately and forcefully directed all of his focus at Blue in an effort not to react.

She reached him and offered him a hand, almost apologetically. Adam fought the urge to shoot a worried look aside to Gansey before he took it, and Blue led him towards the middle of the room, between two couches. On one side, a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Blue was sitting, mouth strenuously curved into a welcoming smile, even as a second, more substantial woman next to her stood up with a critical frown and moved away. On the other, the pale, delicate face and large, distracting (if faintly vacant) eyes of a third woman offered a more sincere display of kindness and interest.

‘My mother, Maura.’ Blue told Adam, indicating the first. ‘Calla.’ She said more hotly, glaring at the second. ‘And Persephone.’ This was the third, who rose from her seat, strangely reminiscent of a slip of leaf carried up by a breeze, and claimed Adam’s hand from Blue in order to guide him onto the chair next to her.

The woman called Calla said impatiently; ‘How can you-‘ and Maura’s mother cut her off with a stern look and a word of warning. Blue added her own glare, and Adam was painfully conscious that there was some kind of problem with his arrival.

He could just hear Gansey remonstrating with Lynch behind him, as much as he tried to ignore it, and feel the latter’s presence burning silently into him like an unspoken threat.

At the same time, his unexpected position between three women and Blue was becoming increasingly unsettling.

Persephone’s pretty, cool little hand was still on his. She was as unnerving as she was daintily attractive, and Adam could feel colour creeping up his neck from her calm, tender gaze. Calla, on the other hand, had retreated to the other side of the opposite couch, and was staring at him with intense suspicion, while Maura and Blue exchanged frustrated looks and remarks about her behaviour.

Maura shared Blue’s liberal beauty, and her vehemence of speech, and she firmly instructed Calla; ‘Stop being so melodramatic and sit down, for pity’s sake. You’ll get used to it.’

Calla sat, with no small indication of resentment.

‘Forgive our reception.’ Maura sighed, turning her gaze to Adam. Persephone, too, had yet to look away. ‘It’s been a while since someone as gifted as yourself has visited.’

‘Not long enough.’ Calla added grimly, and Blue hissed.

Adam could feel his face burning. He looked anxiously between Maura, Persephone, and Blue, who rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sorry?’

Calla said; ‘You should be.’

‘You’ve got a remarkable- ah, a considerable psychic presence.’ Maura interjected quickly.

Adam expended his remaining self-control suppressing a blank, gaping stare. So much for the psychic thing being a cover. However, the supposedly clairvoyant abilities of the Veil’s Pythia should probably have made this obvious to him much earlier.

What did that mean, psychic presence? Adam had never really had any significant kind of presence at all. Did that mean Calla was Pythia?

With another eye-roll, Blue stepped between the four sitting individuals and snapped. ‘This lot are the ever-so-majestic Pythia. Fighting crime and saving the city and so on, if you can believe _that_.’

Maura scowled at her, and Blue scowled back. Adam got the distinct impression that the room had already contained plenty of tension before he’d made the mistake of entering it.

This lot? All three of them? What did that _mean_?

‘I’m sorry.’ He repeated automatically. ‘How are you feeling?’

This was directed at Blue, who smiled benignly at his question and yet answered with scorn. ‘Right as rain.’

Adam, once again, had the disadvantage of striking the worst possible topic at the worst possible time, because Maura responded to Blue’s answer with a scoff.

‘Unconscious for three-quarters of an hour, and you say you’re “fine” and what in the name of anything is that supposed to mean, anyway? I told you - did I not tell you, did we not all tell you - that you need to be careful?’

Adam cleared his throat awkwardly, and looked back at Persephone, who was now gently examining his hands.

‘Not quite the disaster it seems, I think you’ll find.’ She told him kindly, despite the argument picking up volume and wrath three feet away.

Adam contemplated repeating himself a third time, and decided against it. He waited, in silence, as Persephone continued.

‘But it isn’t going to be easy. Some people _are_ more, and that can be such a terrible burden, without help.’

Adam felt completely, embarrassingly lost, and on the verge of risking offence by asking what on Earth she was talking about, he was surprised by the sight of Henry, who had appeared in his line of sight over Persephone’s shoulder.

He was holding something in one hand, a china cup, and peering at it with perplexed displeasure. When he’d subordinated this bewilderment, he looked up, caught Adam’s gaze and nodded affably. He replaced the cup on a small table next to the armchair he’d apparently just risen from, and came over, carefully avoiding the danger zone between Blue and her mother.

A hand landed on the back of the couch on one side of Adam’s head, but Gansey also didn’t risk speaking over Blue and Maura. Persephone, on the other hand, politely released Adam and drifted, breezily, back to her feet. She seemed to be the only one willing to intervene in the familial dispute, and Henry took her place. He motioned for Adam to lean closer and warned, in hushed tones; ‘Whatever you do, don’t drink the tea.’

 

 

 

Gansey had convinced himself he had plenty of trouble on his hands, that Saturday, with Banshee’s eerie (and probably nonsensical) words playing over and over in his head, her rampant pursuit of innocent farm animals (and farm workers), and Henry’s incapacity to function and constant distress about every dip in the quality of his wifi or satellite or whatever-type-of-connection it was he wanted.

He was pretty close to calling it a terrible day, when Henry got the news.

He didn’t fully explain to Gansey what was happening, but the message was pretty clear. Henry needed a better connection of any kind, and they needed to get the hell back to the city.

He’d nearly swerved off the road when Henry had delivered the information, with as much tact as he could muster, that the drone had arrived on scene to find Adam Parrish singlehandedly defending an unconscious Aegis from an unrecognisable supervillain.

He’d nearly had a panic attack when Henry’s facial recognition software had positively identified the villain as Chimera.

The drone had successfully intervened, Henry reported. Jesse had Blue.

But Adam had vanished, which was horrifying enough. On top of that, because of their complete lack of ground support (Aegis out cold, the Widower apparently down for the count, Ironbee out of town, Nova off touring, and Vine… doing whatever the hell he did in his spare time) and the untimely appearance of a group of agency specialists, Chimera had escaped.

They’d gone straight to Foxway, and arrived too late to implement any countermeasures. Blue was already awake, and pissed. Parrish had recognised her _and_ , according to Jesse, evaded custody in order to retrieve the Widower before consequences caught up with him. Chimera had vanished, and so had the mysterious special unit that nobody was able to put a name or origin to. Blue was furious, less about Adam’s choice (which didn’t fail to unnerve Gansey), and more about losing him while Chimera was loose. She wasn’t able to stand for several hours, but was perfectly capable of calling Gansey a variety of colourful names for hovering and worrying and fidgeting.

When the news article had broken, along with the first few choppy unedited bits of footage, Pythia had helpfully predicted the entirely obvious negative consequences of making so public an intervention, being defeated, and having Veil figures clearly working alongside the Widower, who was irrefutably one of the city’s most wanted.

On top of all that, Gansey hadn’t been able to contact Ronan the whole time, and even though there was no reason he would have been anywhere near the crisis area, Gansey was all too aware of how easily he managed to get himself into trouble.

Henry, reliably, had managed to find him, and convince him to show up to the impromptu team meeting. Despite Henry’s explanation, Ronan was still having trouble accepting the idea that Gansey had been right about Chimera.

‘You’re missing the part where he’s dead.’ He repeated flatly.

Gansey ignored him, and leaned on the sofa behind Adam, hopelessly realising that the Sargents’ argument had descended into territory nobody else would be able (or willing) to follow.

Neither Ronan or Adam were dead, and that was so incredibly reassuring. Adam looked surprisingly unaltered by the experience, and he’d even just… gone to work, with the same quiet diligence that seemed to underpin all his actions.

A large part of Gansey’s admiration for Adam concerned his capacity to just do what was necessary, without recourse to his own moods or personal interests or even potential safety, apparently. Although Gansey wasn’t nearly as volatile or impulsive as Ronan was when it came to being guided by his emotions, he didn’t exactly appreciate the imposition of certain obligations into time and energy he’d rather have expended on his actual interests. Adam seemed to lack the same reflexive resentment of those impositions. It was either stunning maturity or… something else entirely.

A lesser part of Gansey’s admiration for Adam involved his apparent lack of ego. When it came to his intellect - in fact, when it came to anything Adam did - he had a curious lack of perceivable pride about it. He seemed perfectly confident in his abilities, and perfectly certain in his actions, but he never expressed either of those in a form of arrogance or superiority.

This was only of mild fascination to Gansey because it also tended to scare him. Adam’s methodical approach to everything had a tendency to lack _feeling_ , and as Gansey was comfortably convinced that Adam definitely _had_ feelings, he wasn’t completely sure where they were all locked up, and if, at some crucial moment in the future, Adam would be able to access them.

Persephone had serenely interrupted the Sargent argument and floated away. Maura was sitting (but fuming) and Blue settled herself on the arm of the sofa next to Adam and looked, pointedly, at Gansey.

‘Okay.’ Gansey began. ‘Okay, kids, here’s the situation. The supposedly dead ex-superhero Chimera is alive, with his powers still intact-’

‘Some of them.’ Blue interjected.

‘- and apparently he’s now a hearty supporter of a kill-anything-that-moves philosophy. Also, it’s possible the Mayor has called in, or the government has sent in, some kind of special task force, judging by the gentlemen who showed up yesterday after the Veil and the Widower.’

Calla snorted. ‘They’re not government, you can be sure of that. Mercenaries, the lot of them.’

‘Additionally, the media are vilifying the Veil for not leading a head-on assault and neutralising the attacker as rapidly as possible, as well as for supposedly working with the Widower-’

’Not supposedly.’ Blue corrected, frowning at him.

‘Right. So, fortunately they don’t seem to have identified him as Chimera. Unfortunately, there has been speculation that he might be Void, because he’s exhibited similar power. And destructiveness.’

Adam shifted, turning his head a fraction so he could see Gansey’s face, and Gansey rubbed his eyes. ‘I think we’re all comfortable including Adam in anything we have to share-’ He hesitated. The question of Monmouth (and of anything to do with protecting Adam from the Widower) had forewarned Gansey about the delicacy required in approaching this situation. ‘-but personally I feel that his safety should be of foremost concern, given the footage currently being broadcast state-wide.’

Adam straightened marginally, and his mouth went thin, which didn’t seem altogether positive.

‘It’s definitely worth keeping in mind.’ Blue confirmed.

‘I can implement some initial precautionary measures.’ Henry added cheerfully.

‘What else?’ Maura frowned. ‘Pursuing Chimera isn’t an option, given that we have no way of containing him and probably no way of killing him - if that was permissible. You four have school, and so we have another crazy, dangerous threat over Christmas and New Year, which is bound to get ugly.’

‘We could try to determine exactly where he came from.’ Gansey suggested gently. ‘Attempt to find a weakness, or a way of communicating-’

Ronan snorted. He pushed himself away from the wall and jabbed a finger at Gansey. ‘You can’t be serious.’

Gansey scowled at him. Yes, probably, Ronan was right, and trying to talk to the homicidal superpowered lunatic was a bad idea, but it was an idea, at least. ‘I’m just saying-’

‘You’ve researched this asshole for half your life.’ Ronan said sharply, and Gansey felt dread rise in his stomach. ‘Why d’you think you’ll find anything new?’

Gansey hesitated.

The problem was that he already had the information, or at least the lead. And he’d buried it, because he’d been too anxious about how Ronan would react to risk telling him, and he couldn’t ask Henry to do what was required without warning Ronan first.

‘I think I know where to start.’ He confessed finally, meeting Ronan’s dark expression as composedly and unapologetically as he was able. ‘But you’re not going to like it.’

Ronan threw up his chin and made a derisive noise that warned Gansey he knew exactly what was coming. Gansey raised both hands and declared.

‘We’re going to need to hack VVC.’


	19. Today's activities include; fighting crime, committing crime, and generally appreciating the aesthetic of crime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looooong. Science?

Ronan’s reaction was much as Gansey expected. He repeated the derisive noise with greater volume, and cemented his expression into something hard and angry.

Henry perked up; ‘Hacking?’

Even Adam produced an unexpected degree of surprise. ‘You want to hack into the most secure company in the city?’

Surely it wasn’t the _most_ secure. Gansey let doubt creep across his features. ‘It’s not-’

Henry interrupted with a patronising shake of his head, and Gansey sighed.

‘Why?’ Ronan asked lowly. ‘Why them?’

He was, incredibly, keeping most of his anger in check. Gansey hadn’t seen him exert so much self-control since… well, ever. Maybe the association between his parents and VVC was too much for even Ronan to express.

‘I went back through the news reports from the time Chimera appeared, trying to find… anything.’ Gansey took a slow, unsteady breath. He hated hurting Ronan. It was like tearing away at a part of himself. ‘And VVC had a warehouse closed down four months earlier. They trashed a project they’d been working on for almost a year.’

‘What project?’ Ronan wouldn’t stop staring at him, every posture and expression and word conveying his anger.

‘I don’t know.’ Gansey admitted. ‘It was a confidential private venture.’

Ronan didn’t answer, either because he couldn’t bring himself to speak or because he was struggling to hold back what he wanted to say.

‘What did the report say?’ Blue asked quietly. She was watching him, carefully, her expression only matched by Maura’s in intensity. Henry looked thoughtful but calm, Adam’s face was only visible in profile, and offered no clues as to what he was thinking. Calla picked up her drink from the table and took a few large mouthfuls, but she and Persephone had both withdrawn their interest from the conversation.

‘The warehouse was used for research, indeterminate, and had increased the amount of traffic in the neighbourhood, which the residents could now be assured would decline as the project was packed up.’

‘Four months earlier isn’t really conclusive.’ Maura suggested gently.

Gansey heard something in her tone, a subtle warning, and respectfully bowed his head. Ronan’s temper was simmering, and he risked a full blown argument if he really considered this a necessity.

‘Scientific research is regulated.’ Adam said finally, still looking away. ‘It might be easier to hack the Bioethics Research Advisory Commission.’

There was a small pause, and Gansey wondered vaguely why he hadn’t insisted on Adam’s involvement sooner.

Almost disappointed, Henry asked; ‘But would they record the nature of the research?’

Adam shrugged. ‘Inspection is obliged to record procedures and objectives to ensure ethical standards are met.’

‘Sounds good.’ Gansey sighed. Maybe it was distant enough from VVC to prevent Ronan’s fury, once he’d calmed down from this.

Henry pleasantly excused himself from the meeting to get started, with Adam looking after him curiously.

Gansey cleared his throat. ‘Adam, ah, another thing.’

Calla made another small noise of annoyance, which was the only indication at all of Adam’s unrest. He met Gansey’s gaze impassively.

‘Did you have any luck finding the Widower?’ Gansey couldn’t think of a more suitable way to ask. Adam’s expression didn’t change.

‘He survived.’ He responded shortly, and again diverted his eyes to the bookcase behind Gansey. Even unexpressed, he was obviously ill-at-ease with the topic. He added with slightly more force. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

Blue said suddenly; ‘What do we do about the mercenaries?’

‘Find out who sent them.’ Gansey answered. ‘Find out what they’re after.’

‘Chimera? Maybe they’re trying to cover-up the failure in D.C.’

‘Maybe.’ Gansey paused, pensively. Some days he thought his memories of the event were perfect, some days they seemed fuzzy, altered over time and overlaid with implications from his later research. He remembered being lifted and carried away, thrown over someone’s shoulder as the distant booming sound of heavy helicopters got louder.

And the screaming. Bodies unrecognisable from damage and blood. Chimera frozen in place, looking up to the sky and waiting, his face a paralysed snarl of anger.

But he’d waited for his fate. Maybe because he recognised his guilt… maybe because he was beyond logic.

Gansey had suspected he could have survived. He’d suspected so much about Chimera’s origins, though, that it had hardly been an avid belief. Ronan, now standing with his arms crossed and smouldering silently by the window, thought Gansey was obsessed with Chimera on the principle that he wasn’t responsible for his actions. Fortunately for his own self-respect, Gansey wasn’t quite so naive.

More importantly, Chimera had appeared in 2006, as abruptly and powerfully as he supposedly perished four years later in Washington. He was a grown man, incredibly strong, and either excessively perceptive or very mildly telepathic, according to different reports. His rise to fame was immediate and unhindered by the legalities of his behaviour. Vigilantes, even superheroes, had preceded him, but there were no new laws for their containment at that stage. He’d wounded and killed many in the pursuit of justice, though not as prolifically as the Widower, and generally in less subversive circumstances.

In Washington, Gansey had expected a superhero. After Washington, Gansey had discovered the origins of a supervillain.

Probably in Chimera’s early activity and violence there had been the indicators of instability, but at the time, his targets had been unequivocally crooked, and the public had loved the idea of a native hero, a man who could bring fortune and fame to the rest of the city in his wake.

The most significant thing that concerned Gansey about Chimera had little to do with his personal experience.

It was more closely tied to the lingering doubt that Chimera had been naturally gifted. More likely, he had been the subject of some kind of modification, and Gansey’s recurrent fear was that the means to recreate the effects might still, somewhere, exist.

‘Maybe they’re after us.’ Maura remarked pointedly. ‘The Veil has been making enemies.’

Gansey looked across at her, at Calla’s noticeable silence and Persephone’s absent contemplation of empty space. Pythia were easily the most obscure people he’d ever encountered. As talented as they were at obtaining information, they were equally skilled at withholding it. Blue was predictably irritated.

‘Which “enemies” would they be, exactly?’ She retorted sharply.

‘Not just us, of course.’ Calla smiled slyly. ‘Plenty of people would like to see the spider get squashed… as he nearly was.’

Gansey saw Adam’s attention flicker to Calla, and quickly away. He was loyal, unshakeably loyal, and given that the Widower had worked so hard with Blue to control Chimera, Gansey wasn’t sure he could remain so doubtful about it.

‘What about the media?’ Maura redirected the conversation again, away from the Widower. Gansey wondered if it was due to some invisible distress on Adam’s part, or if they merely didn’t mark the vigilante as important.

‘Give it a couple days, and they’ll be looking for reforms.’ Calla scoffed. ‘Legislation to restrict vigilantism, treaties and special task forces. We’ll all be outlaws within the week.’

Blue snorted disdainfully. ‘Nothing we can do about that. Not much they can do about us.’

‘Do you think there’s any present danger to Adam?’ Gansey queried, refusing to acknowledge Adam’s frown.

‘You mean from _other_ people?’ Calla laughed. Blue shot her another look.

‘We’ll certainly be on the lookout.’ Maura addressed her comment to Adam reassuringly. Persephone settled onto the couch next to him, looking softly troubled, and patted his hand.

Gansey wondered if the Widower would be just as anxious to protect his ally. History would indicate so, but Gansey couldn’t help but feel suspicious of his motives.

 

 

 

Gansey was lucky that Parrish was around, or Ronan would have shared some very specific opinions about his idea to investigate VVC.

As it was, Ronan had to use all his self-restraint to push down the bubbling panic and sidestep an outburst. He didn’t need to draw any attention to himself, his guilty conscience, or his temper, even if it meant not unleashing the full force of his resistance to Gansey’s scheme.

Thankfully, Gansey hadn’t noticed Ronan’s choice of clothing - loose jeans and a hoodie - because of his obvious preoccupation with Chimera. He didn’t appear to see the faint split on the bridge of Ronan’s nose, either, or the faded colour around his eye.

VVC, really?

At least Parrish, by some miracle, had recommended otherwise.

It was Ronan’s only saving grace that Gansey had never dug into VVC’s history, out of respect for him. Ronan had never risked it either. He didn’t have Cheng’s computer skills, so it was unlikely he’d even be able to breach the firewall, and he didn’t trust anyone enough, including Henry, to ask for assistance. There wasn’t anything such digging could offer him, anyway, unless he doubted his father’s honesty.

Declan had always sneered at his faith, but Declan had always been an asshole.

The psychics were apparently placed under some undue pressure by Parrish’s visit, which Ronan wasn’t really sure about.

The same issue had come up when he’d been pursuing Void. Apparently Adam was some kind of psychic flare, and they’d found him so quickly on that occasion Ronan had initially assumed he was being mocked. He wasn’t sure what the actual effects of Parrish’s brainpower were, aside from making him a human tracking device. Calla’s reluctance and Maura’s caution about him suggested that his proximity was somewhat unpleasant, although Persephone didn’t seem bothered in the least.

Ronan wondered what it was like, to feel Parrish’s mind. He thought maybe it would feel like a star, burning with energy. Or maybe like liquid nitrogen, like being engulfed in the cold.

It would have to be beyond description. Reluctantly, he shared their unease.

Parrish covered for him, and Ronan felt sickly grateful. He’d made all of them, now, complicit in a lie which would horrify Gansey if he ever discovered it.

Cheng pushed back into the room suddenly, and held aloft a small handful of papers. ‘Ha!’

‘You found something?’ Gansey sounded disbelieving, and Ronan didn’t blame him. That was distinctly too easy.

‘Ha!’ Henry repeated clearly, but he bypassed Gansey in order to shove the papers into Adam’s hand. ‘See?’

Adam’s frown deepened, and he developed a thoughtful indent between his eyebrows. ‘That’s… odd.’

‘What is it?’ Gansey leaned forward, eyes lighting up.

Adam quoted; ‘“Project approved.” “Standards satisfactory.” “Compliant with regulations.” There isn’t a single detail about their proposal.’ He looked up, fixing Gansey with a curious stare. ‘Suspicious?’

Gansey touched his lip. ‘Is that likely to be it?’

Adam flicked through the papers. ‘This is everything for 2006?’

‘And the second half of 2005.’ Cheng clarified smugly.

‘There’s two proposals and six assessments.’ Adam said slowly. ‘So several of these are possibly for the project they stopped, but the others can’t be.’

‘Can’t be?’

‘There’s a proposal and then a random yearly inspection.’ He explained. ‘So if they began in 2005, they’d only have been assessed twice.’

‘And there’s no description on any of them?’ Gansey reached for the papers, and Adam handed them over willingly.

‘What does that mean?’ Blue interrupted impatiently.

Adam chose to shrug mildly. Gansey looked across at Ronan, who felt his stomach sink. So much for avoiding VVC. 

‘Maybe they were bought off.’ Gansey proposed carefully, still watching Ronan for a sign of approval. ‘And the project was never inspected at all.’

‘Or-’ Adam cleared his throat. ‘-they might have just been incompetent.’

Parrish again. Ronan considered actually making eye contact, trying to communicate his appreciation, and rejected the idea.

‘Hm.’ Adam extended his hand and Gansey gave the papers back. ‘Is there any kind of access log for these forms?’

Cheng smirked casually. ‘I can get that from the file itself, although I must say I don’t see-’

‘They’d need approval for any substantial materials, and this might have been sent to a supplier, or even a freight company.’

Excitement broke across Gansey’s face like a sunrise. ‘You think the materials could tell us what they were doing?’

‘I doubt it.’ Adam answered bluntly, and Gansey’s glee was correspondingly wounded. ‘But it might at least indicate what area they were working in.’

‘Are we-’ Cheng prodded. ‘-or are we not hacking into VVC?’

Gansey delivered one last, pleading look in Ronan’s direction, and said heavily; ‘That’s a last resort.’

‘Can I give you a hand?’ Adam offered, slightly desperately if Ronan was any judge, and Cheng graciously nodded.

‘Barrel of laughs, that one.’ Calla commented disparagingly, after the two of them had left.

Blue released an exasperated sigh. ‘Are you being deliberately unkind?’

Calla jerked her chin, offended, and Blue continued; ‘Or are you just being deliberately provocative? Having him here can’t be so terrible, if you’re not even willing to explain why you don’t approve.’

‘You know it’s not as clear as that.’ Maura said gently.

‘And certain things must remain private, as I would imagine you understand.’ Calla added, with a meaningful glance towards Ronan which prompted a sneer in return.

‘Is he in trouble, though?’ Gansey asked anxiously, fortunately oblivious. ‘Are we putting him in danger?’

‘No more than you are putting yourself in.’ Maura answered, her tone an ambivalent border between comforting and reprimanding. There was an edge there, something held back, and Ronan suppressed a shiver. Both Gansey and Blue seemed to experience the same effect.

‘Difficult times.’ Persephone murmured, unprompted, and as far as Ronan was concerned that was more than enough precognition for the day.

 

Later, when Ronan grudgingly followed Gansey and Blue into Cheng’s rooms, a pleasant sojourn with a bottle of gin he’d located in the Foxway kitchen had marginally improved his mood. It was probably Calla’s, and she’d probably try to kill him at some point, but he felt it was duly earned after that little jab about the Widower secret.

And he was seriously, seriously hoping the jab had actually been about the Widower secret, and not something else involving Parrish.

He didn’t like how Pythia talked about Adam. He didn’t want to think about the way Calla distanced herself, or the way Maura edged towards quiet pity, or the way Persephone seemed so melancholy about his supposed future.

 _How much can they know?_ He kept asking himself, a repetitive attempt at reassurance. _How much can they be sure of?_

Parrish was sitting at the metal table in the meeting room, with loose papers neatly spread out in front of him. He was making notes in his precise, elegant way, and he didn’t seem to notice them until Gansey cleared his throat.

Adam looked up, at Gansey first, and glanced at Ronan before quickly looking away.

‘There’s something here.’ He informed Gansey abruptly, neither excited nor disappointed.

‘What is it?’ Gansey scooted forward, and respectfully sat at Parrish’s right elbow. Blue leaned over his shoulder, and Ronan circled the table and looked through the glass window into Cheng’s computer lab.

‘Industrial grade copper and iron.’ He explained. ‘Titanium alloy framing to specifications, and polymer-insulated HVDC cables.’

Gansey nodded thoughtfully, and much to Ronan’s amusement, said; ‘I have no idea what that means.’

Adam seemed too intent on his findings to mind. ‘Not research. They were _building_ something.’

‘Building what?’

For the briefest moment, Adam’s gaze flickered to Ronan, and he confirmed the unspoken question automatically. ‘A generator.’

Adam added; ‘A powerful one.’

Blue was unimpressed with this revelation. ‘Is that supposed to be a big deal?’

‘Depends what it was powering.’ Ronan replied drily.

‘Oh. What was it powering?’

Adam shook his head. ‘There’s nothing here. They must have built it off site and brought it in, if there was ever anything at all.’ He tapped the table several times. ‘The power loading this suggests is immense, especially for 2006. They must have been testing _something_.’

‘Suspicious?’ Gansey repeated, excitement barely curbed by his sense of propriety.

‘Dangerous.’

‘How do we find out what it was?’ Adam rubbed his eyes, and Gansey hastily switched his focus. ‘Time for a early dinner, I should think.’

 

 

 

Blue instructed Gansey to get food, and stayed with Adam while he organised the printed orders Henry had given him. Lynch followed Gansey, probably eager to escape, and then they were alone.

She didn’t punch him, but Adam got the impression she wanted to.

‘You could have _died_.’

‘I didn’t.’

It wasn’t what she wanted to say, Adam knew.

‘Ronan could have died.’ She sounded almost surprised by the concept, like she had to genuinely weigh up her feelings on the matter.

‘So could you.’ Adam deflected.

‘Yeah.’ She frowned. ‘That was a shitty day.’

Adam didn’t answer. He could feel it again, seeping in. Fatigue. And the feeling that the days would roll on in interminable monotony, lacking any hope of success or escape, lacking any hope at all. And an emptiness, like he’d actually lost a friend, like someone had died and there were plans or intentions absent from his mental calendar. Maybe it was some kind of delayed shock.

‘It was brave, what you did. Stupid, but brave.’ She sounded wistful. ‘And I figure Lynch is too much of an asshole to thank you, so, thanks. For getting him out of there. And the rest.’

She looked as prodigiously uncomfortable with the proceedings as Adam felt, but after a moment’s consideration added; ‘Gansey couldn’t live without him. They’re practically family.’

Henry pushed through the glass door and blinked rapidly at them a couple of times, apparently aware that he was interrupting a great deal of discomfort and apparently also extremely amused by it.

‘Did you find anything else?’ Blue asked tiredly.

‘Not related to this.’ He smiled. ‘Where is our fearless leader?’

‘Scavenging food.’

‘With Lynch?’

‘Yes…’ She glanced at him quizzically. ‘I don’t think this hacking thing is a good idea.’

It hadn’t been difficult for Adam to pick up on Lynch’s obvious aversion to hacking into VVC, and Adam thought his caution was well-founded. Viridiveste was better funded and more strictly operated than any local governmental departments. The security was more extreme, the consequences of being caught were more intimidating, and the potential wealth of information that could be hidden within their system was beyond imagining.

VVC had taken every advantage of the lax policing of research since they’d started operating in the city. It was easy to accept that they could have paid off the BRAC and used their influence to garner political support and direct the focus of the police force away from their operations. They weren’t unique in that type of behaviour, not here, but they were particularly effective. And the potential risks of poking into their business were rumoured to stretch beyond prosecution by the most expensive lawyers money could buy.

Henry merely smiled ruefully. ‘It could be the only source of useful information. Gansey Three may be able to convince him so.’

Adam swallowed and looked between the two of them, hoping this was dramatic flair, but he wasn’t reassured.

‘Ronan’s parents worked for VVC.’ Blue said, very quietly, and Adam felt a spark of understanding, followed by a rapid series of realisations.

Ronan’s parents were scientists? Working for one of the most advanced private research corporations in the country? The same one that Gansey suspected was involved with the appearance - and possibly the creation - of Chimera?

He grimly predicted the answer to his next question.

‘What happened to them?’

Blue looked at her hands. Henry Cheng looked aside, no longer amused.

‘They died.’ She hesitated, and unwillingly whispered. ’Do you remember Caedes?’

Adam did. She didn’t have to say anything else.

 

Gansey and Lynch returned with a box full of food from the nearby bakery, which was entirely devoid of nutrition. While Adam helped himself to an eclair which was longer than his hand, Henry asked Gansey what their next step would be.

‘VVC is our only option.’ He answered, solemnity only slightly marred by the syrup from a danish pastry dripping down his wrist.

‘This is not real food.’ Blue said dubiously.

Whatever had been said between Gansey and Lynch clearly hadn’t altered the latter’s view on the matter. He tipped back in his chair and glowered.

‘If they closed the project down, couldn’t they have erased it from the system?’ Blue asked, selecting a fruit tart, the healthiest looking option, with considerable reluctance.

Gansey nodded. ‘Possibly.’

‘And there’s no real link between Chimera and this except the timeframe.’ She continued. ‘Isn’t this an unnecessary risk?’

‘I don’t know.’ He admitted. ‘There’s nothing else I can think of.’

Henry retreated to his computer, easily more intrigued by the prospect of illegal behaviour than he was by cakes.

‘How is your physics assignment going?’ Gansey asked, and Adam guiltily lowered a half-eaten jam donut.

‘I haven’t finished it.’ He confessed.

‘I’ve got my laptop here, if you want to stick around for a while.’ Gansey offered. ‘If it’s any use.’

Adam affirmed his interest. He could edit any new work onto the original when he got home, and he was involuntarily curious about the outcome of Henry’s digging. The extent of Viridiveste’s research promised work on the very frontiers of science, even if that came hand-in-hand with a problematic ethical approach. Their findings would be a gold mine if the media got hold of them, but Adam was more personally fascinated.

And Ronan’s parents might be in that system somewhere.

Adam wondered what they’d studied.

 

Within three hours of gaining access to Gansey’s laptop and Henry’s internet connection, Adam had roughly outlined the rest of his essay. He assumed Henry’s strangely universal access to research databases wasn’t completely above-board, but he remained thoroughly impressed.

He worked undisturbed in the same meeting room next to Henry’s office. Blue furtively disappeared with the obvious intention of getting some extra sleep, while Gansey lingered at Henry’s side. Adam could see them through the glass windows when he remembered to look up.

Lynch had vanished. Adam didn’t know where to, or if he was even still in the building. He was trying very hard not to think about it.

He was carefully checking one of his references when the light came on and startled him.

‘Still at it?’ Blue meandered over to the table and slumped into a chair, stifling a yawn. ‘Oh, I see they haven’t moved either.’

She glanced around vacantly, as if ascertaining what was missing, and sighed. ‘Ignore Calla, by the way. She just likes being bitter.’

The comment broke through Adam’s concentration. ‘What did your mother mean, before?’

Blue shrugged. ‘Don’t know, exactly. People have different sorts of volume, psychically speaking, or so I’m told. Apparently you’re loud. I wouldn’t worry about it.’

Adam fell silent. Being loud was something else he was rarely accused of.

Through the glass window, Adam saw Gansey start away from the computer. He pushed open the door and called them over.

‘Did you get in?’ Blue asked, slowly stirring.

Adam followed her to the door, perceiving Gansey’s controlled elation. ‘What did you find?’

‘Something- something big.’

‘Specifications. Could be what they were using the power for.’ Henry added. ‘There’s no explanation for them.’

Henry was seated in front of two wide, crisp computer screens, and there were several more on the wall above the desk. Two of them were displaying a stretched image of an engineer’s draft. Adam felt his brain reject Fermi in order to confront the incredible complexity of the design.

‘What is that?’

‘We were hoping you could help with that.’ Gansey admitted. He shot a concerned look over his shoulder.

Adam wondered if that was usually Lynch’s role in the team. He was technically supposed to be a physics and chemistry student, and as the Widower he’d never failed to understand whatever Adam was talking about. Maybe Gansey remained oblivious to Lynch’s alter ego because he was readily sharing details of the Veil’s business with him, and it gave Lynch an excuse for always being involved.

It wasn’t relevant, now, anyway. It didn’t matter. The dark lines of the structural blueprint in front of him stole his focus, absorbed his attention. It looked like another kind of generator, reinforced, and encased in a globe like a Faraday cage.

‘Some kind of equipment signal testing chamber, maybe.’ He edged closer. ‘Could be electromagnetic radiation exposure on a large scale, but that’s hardly safe… _or_ groundbreaking. There are details missing from this. See here? and here?’

‘So it’s not complete?’ Gansey asked.

‘More like it’s not relevant.’ Adam corrected. ‘This is mostly structural, and what was added in would determine the function.’

Gansey seemed to curl over slightly, maybe out of disappointment.

‘Do you think they were covering it up?’ Blue inquired, taking up the questioning as he hesitated.

‘This is scientific research for profit.’ Adam pointed out patiently. ‘They’d conceal whatever they needed to in order to out-manoeuvre their competitors.’

Gansey said to Henry, voice tinged with desperation; ‘Do you think you can find anything else?’

Henry just smiled.

 

Adam had more trouble focusing on his essay after he’d seen it. He caught himself picturing the diagram, pondering the placement of dampeners and seals. There was no justification for channelling so much power into a chamber that size. And there was no clear indication of what they were channelling it through, or channelling it _for_.

He kept working until his head was protesting. It had gotten late, but Adam knew he had to be awake to finish the essay anyway, and staying to see if Henry could find any description of the project had become a compulsive desire. Blue had drifted away again. Even Gansey had given Henry some space, and Adam was on his own, wrapped in the silence and the gentle hum of Cheng’s computer processors next door.

He was tentatively resting his eyes one moment, and the next someone was squeezing his shoulder tightly.

The sensation registered even in muddled half-sleep, and he woke up wary.

‘Adam.’ It was only Gansey, standing on his right.

Blue was on the other side of the table, head lowered, one hand over her mouth. Adam knew something was wrong. He saw it in her posture, in her unblinking stare at the table.

He heard it in Gansey’s voice, in the way he hadn’t let go of Adam’s shoulder.

He felt it from Henry Cheng’s uneasiness as he hovered near the door, frowning down at the paper he was holding like it had personally offended him.

And he knew it from Ronan Lynch’s presence at the end of the table, arms crossed, jaw set, looking ready for a fight, looking at Adam, unflinchingly, for the first time all day.

‘What is it?’ Adam stood up, turning to face Gansey. He was white as a sheet, and he looked guilty, or scared, or both. ‘Did we get caught?’

Nobody answered.

Henry was the only one who moved. He took two steps forward and offered Adam the sheet of paper over the table.

Adam wasn’t too alarmed to take it. He didn’t like to overreact without all the facts.

It was a photograph, printed quickly on regular paper. A little dark, but good quality, and not too old.

It was a formal photo, a group picture, like a publicity shot for a business with the employees front and centre. And they were standing in front of something remarkably similar to the blueprint Adam had seen earlier. There were only eight people, smiling but eminently serious, close enough to all fit in the frame but still maintaining a professional kind of distance. Only one of them had eschewed the social norm, and slung an arm round the shoulders of the figure next to him.

Adam might have been curious about him, the taller man, with an unusually fierce expression, if he hadn’t been struck so suddenly and breathtakingly by the exceptional… _unbelievable_ likeness of the figure he was hugging to _Noah_.


	20. Any minute now, someone is going to start singing that song from Annie.

Adam’s first response was to laugh blankly.

He wasn’t sure exactly what he was feeling, confusion, or disbelief, or irritation… but it was a lot.

‘What is this?’ He looked at Gansey again, half-smiling with uncertainty. It was odd, yes, but it wasn’t _Noah_. If this was - what? Ten years ago? Noah would have been a child. This could easily be a doppelgänger for him now, the similarity was so striking, but _it wasn’t Noah_.

‘The team that worked on the Everett project when it began in 2005.’ Gansey explained carefully. Adam rubbed his eyes with faint desperation, and looked again at the photo. Searched for some evidence of trickery in the picture, in the shadows pooling directly under the feet of the scientists or the surfaces looming monstrously behind them. He noticed something else.

The taller figure, next to the boy who looked just like Noah, with one lip half curled over his teeth in an unfriendly smile. He, too, was oddly familiar. If his hair had been trimmed and his face had filled out, he would bear an uncanny resemblance to pre-2010 Chimera.

Adam let go of the picture, and Gansey leaned over to pick it up from where it slid between the chairs. Henry was silently waiting, and Adam turned a searching gaze to him.

‘It’s genuine.’ He started, and Adam half snorted.

‘It’s not-’ It didn’t matter if the photo was real. That wasn’t Noah. It wasn’t possible. ‘Who _is_ he?’

‘We’re not sure, Adam.’ Blue answered quietly.

‘There are legal waivers.’ Henry continued, equally sombre. ‘Buried so far down you wouldn’t believe it, but there are records of the team.’

‘Names?’ Adam demanded. He didn’t know what to expect. Noah was his brother, and it had always been just them and Dad and no other family. No other siblings, no uncles. Nobody else.

Blue and Henry looked at Gansey, but Gansey didn’t immediately respond, and Adam pushed away from the table furiously. He strode round the far end, passing the motionless Lynch, and circled behind Henry to pull open the door to the office.

All eight of the waivers were spread across Henry’s screens, all eight of them signed above neatly typed names. Elliott Stafford, Moira Healey, Eric Jacob Jones, Alexandria Bonolis, Laura Bertotti, Noah… _Noah Czerny_?

Adam pushed the chair out of the way and stepped closer to the screen. He heard Gansey come into the room behind him, murmuring something.

He couldn’t remember what Noah’s handwriting looked like. Was it that spidery? Was it so strangely adolescent and eager? All of the letters were tall, the initials capitalised, flourishing and, Adam thought, familiar.

But it couldn’t be Noah. It couldn’t be.

The documents didn’t have any other personal information on them. Adam reached back, blindly, and was rewarded by Gansey pushing something into his hand. A cell phone.

He struggled, for the first time in his life, to remember the number. It was late, the monitor claimed it was nearly midnight, and Adam felt that the lack of proper sleep was starting to pull his brain apart at the seams. He didn’t know if the others had come into the room. He just stared at the computers and tried to dial.

The phone rang, or maybe he picked up straight away, Adam didn’t notice.

‘Adam…’ Noah sounded upset. Adam shook his head, tried to clear his thoughts. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What are you-’ Adam turned, tripped over the chair he’d shoved, and Blue grabbed one of his arms.

‘I’ll explain. I swear, I’ll explain everything. Don’t be angry.’

He pulled the phone away from his ear, still shaking his head, and felt Gansey rescue it from his hand. Through the glass door, he saw someone come into the meeting room, Blue’s mother. Blue herself was pulling his arm, and he realised he was trying to go somewhere, though he didn’t know where.

‘Noah?’ Gansey asked anxiously.

Adam didn’t- he couldn’t hear Noah’s side of the conversation. He saw Henry edging forwards subtly to lend Blue some assistance, and between the two of them he found himself guided into the chair.

‘Monmouth? Do you need- Oh. Okay. No, I will. We’ll be there.’

Maura had come into the room, had come over, and she was looking at him urgently. She asked Blue; ‘Is he in shock?’ and Blue responded, sharply; ‘ _Is he_?’

 

 

 

 

Parrish was out of it. If he hadn’t already been half asleep, maybe it wouldn’t have hit him so hard, but he went from awake and aware to non-functional in the bare space of about two minutes. Blue and Cheng managed to pin him to a chair, though he seemed unwilling to sit, or stay, and he’d glazed over with a kind of morbid confusion.

Maura came in, apparently convinced he was having some kind of a nervous breakdown or a brain aneurysm, and a moment later Calla followed. She had a bottle of bourbon (where had she been hiding that?) which she firmly set about trying to feed to Parrish.

‘Monmouth.’ Gansey repeated nervously. He’d ended the phone call, and Ronan felt slightly aggravated, given that Parrish was practically catatonic and Baby Parrish - or whoever the hell he was - hadn’t supplied anything useful to explain it.

Maura looked at Blue significantly, probably reiterating some earlier warning about overextending herself during her recovery, but she didn’t verbally protest.

Gansey and Henry helped Adam stand (or more accurately, they asked him to stand and he vacantly complied). Ronan didn’t intervene. It didn’t feel right being close to him, and it didn’t feel safe being Ronan Lynch at that moment. He followed them at a safe distance, behind Blue, and Maura and Calla, whispering cautiously between themselves, and collected Gansey’s laptop on the way past.

They’d disappeared by the time he’d reached the top of the staircase, but Persephone was standing there, looking down the darkened steps with gentle concern. She reached out to him, and Ronan stopped, as helplessly unnerved as he always was by her. Maura and Calla had never been intimidated by him, or anything beyond slightly cautious of his temper, but Persephone hadn’t acknowledged even that. When she looked at him, when she spoke to him, Ronan was consistently alarmed by the sensation that she knew everything he’d ever done, and it didn’t trouble her in the slightest.

‘He’ll need help.’ She advised.

Ronan edged past, onto the top steps, but he didn’t stop looking at her.

‘He’ll need time.’ She added thoughtfully. ‘Maybe more than he has.’

Ronan didn’t look away until Persephone chose to let him, and he jumped down the rest of the stairway.

The others had gone on ahead in the Pig, but Henry had left his car keys with Maura.

Cheng drove a Fisker, sleek, beautiful, and as preternaturally spotless as the day he’d gotten it. Ronan rarely got the pleasure of being trusted with someone (anyone) else’s car, but he couldn’t bring himself to really enjoy it. He didn’t even cut the corner pulling into the garage under Monmouth.

He’d tried not to get caught with the others, because he didn’t trust himself to talk to anyone on the drive back, but the empty silence of the Fisker (nothing like the horrendous rumble of the Pig) only served as a vindictive reminder that Parrish got further and further away and there was nothing he could do about it.

There was nothing he _could_ do about it, even if he’d been crammed into the back of the car with Henry or Blue.

Instead, he went over every minute he’d spent with little Parrish, every detail of their conversations, everything. A lack of focus and frequent indulgence in liquor made most of his recollections less than ideal, and Noah was… vague, at the best of times. He wasn’t as tall as Adam, and he was always considerably more pale, but not everyone shared the sibling resemblance that the Lynch brothers were notable for.

Adam was serious and stoic, Noah could reasonably be called flighty, or drowsy, or cheery - really Ronan hadn’t been paying close attention.

Neither of them talked particularly about themselves, or each other, or family, but Ronan didn’t see anything unusual about that.

But there were certain odd facts that were noticeably strange, even to Ronan. Noah didn’t go to school, or anywhere, but he never seemed to be at home and Adam was never able to account for him. And where the hell did he sleep?

Some kind of anti-aging power, maybe? But the Everett project’s Noah was a Czerny, not a Parrish… Was Adam covering for him? Why would he have melted down? Why wouldn’t he have resisted their digging into VVC?

Unremarkably, Ronan reached Monmouth before the others had gotten upstairs, despite his delay in leaving Foxway.

Henry hung back to wait for him, and Ronan returned the keys.

‘Did you know about this?’ Cheng whispered curiously. Ronan shook his head, jaw clenched.

‘Did you?’

Cheng looked pleasantly taken aback. ‘I did _not_.’

‘What do you know?’

‘I know that Noah Parrish is Noah Czerny. My computers don’t lie. They tease, but they do not lie.’ He added restlessly; ‘Parrish isn’t that good an actor, is he?’

Ronan didn’t answer. He didn’t think so. He didn’t think Adam had a dramatic bone in his body, but how could he be sure?

Noah was upstairs. Ronan could feel it by the time he and Cheng were halfway up there, and he felt anxiety thrumming in his veins.

He thought his senses were forewarning him, and he stepped in front of Henry before pushing open the door.

It was relatively quiet inside. Noah was standing in front of the television, twisting his hands in front of his stomach. He looked the same as ever. Loose sweater, loose jeans. Young, tired face. His hair was fairer than Adam’s, light blonde in fact, and he was altogether quite dissimilar from the figure standing behind the sofa.

Noah’s presence had woken Adam up a bit, but he was unnaturally agitated. He had both hands on the back of the sofa, curling and uncurling convulsively.

He said tightly; ‘What did you do?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t- I _can’t_ remember. What happened? What are you doing?’

Noah lifted his hands, distraught. Gansey placed a soothing hand on Adam’s arm.

 

 

 

Gansey had been right, about Adam Parrish. After a couple of moments he’d pulled everything back in, closed himself off, and appeared to calm down.

Noah sat on the sofa. Blue sat next to him. Henry sat in an armchair, leaning his chin into his hand and looking inappropriately relaxed.

Gansey sat on the edge of the coffee table opposite Noah. Adam stood behind him, with the table between himself and his brother. Ronan stood by the window.

‘I worked for Viridiveste as a graduate.’ Noah began, unprompted, emotional. ‘They hired me for Project Everett because I specialised in quantum physics, and I’d been offered a chance to do my dissertation on Tegmark.’

‘A graduate?’ Gansey repeated.

‘I graduated when I was eighteen.’ Gansey could still hear the quiet pride, underneath layers of guilt and sadness. ‘There were four of us, graduates, and four supervisors. When we were brought on, they told us we were going to be doing mostly theoretical research on the possible existence and configuration of the multiverse.’

Slowly, trying not to interrupt, Gansey unfolded the piece of paper with the photograph on it and passed it to him. Noah sniffled, unashamedly.

‘I joined with Baz.’ He said, voice even quieter. ‘We graduated together. And I always thought- ’ He broke off and gestured vaguely. ‘ - he always said we’d do something incredible. I thought he meant after Everett… I guess.’

‘We were in for a week, and we’d signed all the forms, legal waivers, nondisclosure, like that, and they took us to the warehouse. It wasn’t marked or anything, and we went in a black car without any logo, and Baz said it was going to be big. Pioneers of science-type big. And it was.’

‘What were they building?’ Gansey breathed. ‘What were you building?’

‘A quantum portal.’ Noah answered bleakly. ‘We theorised about it as undergrads, y’know, we threw some ideas around- but we were years… decades from that kind of knowledge, and maybe centuries from the technology. And it was all theoretical, you understand. It was science fiction. I didn’t know where to start.’

Noah still didn’t seem to know where to start. He wilted slightly, folded over himself, and seemed to become less in a blink.

Gansey leaned forward and gently pointed to the fierce figure next to Noah in the photograph. He couldn’t bear the way his heart was hammering under his ribcage. He just barely understood what a quantum portal was. But he knew the face of that other boy almost as well as anything in the world. ‘That’s Baz?’

Noah nodded, sniffled again, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

‘And what happened to him, when he became Chimera… it was the same as…?’

‘Same accident, yeah. He got stronger and I… just faded.’ Noah wiped his nose again, and suddenly became almost painfully frightened. ‘We were both in Washington. I didn’t want him to go. He was getting worse, and I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen. He never listened to me.’

He looked, fearfully, between Gansey and Adam. ‘I couldn’t stop him then, not ’til it was too late. I tried, you know. I wasn’t strong enough, and he said he could get rid of me.’

‘ _Noah_.’ Adam interrupted sharply.

He calmed himself, with some effort, and continued. ‘When we started I thought it was ridiculous. They gave us all these notes and the preliminary work, and materials like you wouldn’t believe. I didn’t believe it, at first. And they never told us where the work came from. I just thought it was funny, a bit stupid. But Baz, he took it so seriously, he was so _obsessed_ … Sometimes he made me think it was really possible. Sometimes I thought he was going crazy. We worked on it for _months_ , and got nowhere. I think he stopped sleeping, and he never left the lab. He stopped telling the rest of us what he’d done to the machines. We’d come in some mornings and find things changed… little things. The other grads wanted him out, but one of the supervisors said he was the only one making any progress.’

‘And one day, he got really calm, and he said we should try something we’d already tried, and he thought we could make it work with only a little alteration. Basically, they tried to have him shipped off for a psych evaluation. But he’d already turned it on.’ Noah started crying, but he finished brokenly. ‘He said we’d make history, and he pulled me in with him.’

‘What happened?’ Adam asked flatly. The hairs on Gansey’s arms were standing on end. He felt, more than he’d ever felt before, that Chimera must always have been evil.

Noah pulled himself together slightly. ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know what it _was_.’

‘What happened to you?’ Blue murmured softly.

Noah looked aside, either to summon a lie or to struggle to remember. ‘I wasn’t there. Here. For a bit. And when I came back, I didn’t really come back.’ He giggled tearfully. ‘I thought I was a ghost.’

‘What are you?’ Adam again, his voice empty of anger.

Noah mumbled something that might have been an apology. ‘I’m just a memory, really. Baz - Chimera, then - he said I was his memory. Or that his memory brought me back.’ He looked troubled, by this thought, or by his own confusion. ‘But I could do things, and people could see me, if I wanted them to. I thought… I thought maybe I’d come back properly, one day.’

‘I got stronger, but Baz did too. You know what he did -’ This was directed at Gansey. ‘He wanted to be famous, and powerful. It was all he wanted. And I could make people think I was really there. Got good at it, started to be real again. I just wanted… I just wanted to go home. And they were saying we couldn’t. Not after what happened. Not after what we became.’

‘Viridiveste?’

Noah nodded, spasmodically, swallowing more tears. ‘Baz was out of foster care. He didn’t have any family but us. But they covered up everyone else. Made it look like an unrelated accident.’

Gansey drew back as if burned. He thought Blue might have done the same. ‘Everyone else? It wasn’t just you two?’

‘The thing- the machine, exploded. We survived, or… well, we were inside. The others…’ He shook his head, eyes large and glittering in the light cast from a lamp on Gansey’s desk. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’

‘But you were in Washington?’ Gansey felt the truth dawning over him, half-understood, and horrifying. ‘Oh, god. You stopped him.’

‘I knew… he was going to lose it. He was out of his mind with it. When he became Chimera the fame was enough to hold him back, as long as it kept coming. But as soon as the tide turned, he started getting worse. Obsessive. And he hurt people. Who could stop him? He was so powerful, then.’

Blue said, suddenly; ‘You were the telepath, not him? That’s why it was so inconsistent?’

‘I thought if I stayed near him, sometimes, I’d be able to pull his mind back. I thought he was just overwhelmed. But I…’ A fresh wave of emotion struck him, and Gansey struggled to maintain his own composure. ‘I was too scared. He said if he shut me out I’d fade away, because everyone else had forgotten me anyway.’

‘When they dropped the bomb on him-’

‘I didn’t have a body.’ Noah said thickly. ‘But without him, I just sort of disappeared. I think we both died.’

‘But you came back.’ Gansey said, stunned, half-attempting to reassure Noah and half-attempting to calm himself. ‘You’re alive.’

Adam said; ‘So whatever you’re doing you can just stop, now.’

‘I can’t-’ Noah hiccuped. ‘You don’t understand, I needed someone… to _remember_ me… Even when I wasn’t there.’

‘What are you saying? You can’t…’ Adam stumbled over the words. ‘This is permanent? You changed- You changed my memories?’

‘No.’ He whispered. ‘I just made new ones. New ideas. Things that you won’t forget. So you wouldn’t question it.’

Blue was crying, silently. Henry had his face lowered into both hands. Gansey wasn’t far from tears himself.

He could just see Adam, standing still, but shaking his head, rapidly, trying to dislodge something.

‘Why?’ He demanded. ‘Why did you do that? You know- You must have known I wouldn’t want you to do that.’

‘I _needed_ you.’ Noah whimpered. ‘I woke up alone and I needed someone who was strong enough to keep me alive and you were the _strongest_ one. I’m _sorry_.’

There was silence. Gansey wiped his eyes, then gave up and just covered them.

‘What did you do to- to _my_ father?’

Noah didn’t answer right away. Gansey heard him breathing unevenly. He seemed real. God, he seemed so real. But Gansey had never touched him, never considered touching him, never considered asking any questions, never considered being curious.

When it came, Noah’s answer was a sob; ‘I just wanted him to stop hurting you.’

Gansey was so overwhelmed he could barely think in straight lines. He could just pick out the blurry edges of Noah’s features in the half-light, and he stared as if hypnotised while he tried to make his brain work.

Distantly, he heard someone move, footsteps, and the sound of a door opening and closing. He thought Noah’s expression morphed and darkened and returned. A few moments later, Ronan moved away from the window.

 

 

 

Adam sat on the floor of Ronan’s bedroom, hunched in the corner of Ronan’s bed and the wall under the window. He managed to dig out one of the textbooks Ronan had obviously discarded much earlier in the year, and resolved on struggling to read one of his current sections in the moonlight pooling across the floor.

The door opened (Adam couldn’t begin to react) and Ronan sat on the mattress about a foot away.

‘Don’t.’ Adam told him.

Ronan shrugged, reached for a bottle of whisky at the foot of his bed, and dangled it near Adam’s head. He took it without looking and put it back on the floor. There were enough warning signs in his childhood to have been put off alcohol indefinitely, although life seemed set on testing him.

Ronan sighed and slid off the mattress until he was next to Adam, long legs folded up awkwardly. He found headphones somewhere in the tangled bedsheets and put them on, and from this close Adam could still hear the throbbing of the music, faint, like Ronan’s pulse itself.

He read for as long as he could.

When he woke up, it was with the pleasant surprise of not realising he’d gone to sleep, a gentle daze that briefly excluded misery from his immediate consciousness.

He was resting on a pillow wedged between his head and the wall, one he didn’t remember grabbing but must have, that smelled like Glenlivet and Ronan.

Lynch himself was next to Adam, headphones on, eyes closed. As Adam had slid sideways, he’d unfolded slightly, and he could feel warmth through his jeans where his leg was hooked across Ronan’s ankles.

He tried not to flinch away reflexively, and stared at Ronan to see if he’d been disturbed.

Lynch was a black and white photograph, incredibly short hair still dark, every visible strip of skin pale in the moonlight or dipping into shadow. Delaying thoughts of Noah and Chimera, Adam let himself admire the sharpness of Ronan’s features. So much of Ronan’s energy went into appearing vicious that even his face seemed dedicated to the task, all angles and lines practically weaponised, but somehow even that failed to detract from his attractiveness.

Adam felt a twinge of real envy.

Ronan’s handsomeness, his ferocity, his… not fearlessness, exactly, but unfaltering courage in the face of opposition, were all perfectly observable to anyone who’d ever met him, including Adam. But since Gansey and Ronan had been basically a package deal for as long as they’d both been in the city, nobody could come up against Ronan’s intimidating power without simultaneously encountering Gansey’s effortless charm. Even as Gansey mediated the harshest effects of Ronan’s personality, he unintentionally superimposed the most appealing qualities of his own.

In short, Ronan was enviable, but Gansey was more enviable.

But Ronan socially, Ronan _publicly_ , wasn’t the whole Ronan, some kind of mysterious animal Adam wasn’t sure he’d ever be fully able to comprehend. From where came the Ronan who had dropped to Adam’s defence the first time he’d met the Widower, the Ronan who had unflinchingly faced up against Void in an obvious trap, or the Ronan who had followed him into this room just to offer him some kind of company in his wretchedness?

How had Adam Parrish earned this degree of concern from someone like Ronan Lynch? Someone for whom only Gansey could possibly be good enough, and whose respect literal superheroes like Ironbee and Aegis barely managed to earn. Adam wasn’t them. Adam wasn’t even close.

He’d assumed Ronan Lynch acted the part of the Widower in order to fulfil his vigilante role, but now it seemed plausible that Ronan Lynch wasn’t one or the other, he was both. More, probably. _More_. Like Persephone had said.

Ronan opened his eyes, and slowly glanced across at him, expression unreadable. Adam held his gaze for a few moments, wrestling with the urge to cut and run, and Ronan lazily looked away.

He moved, stretching out his legs and fidgeting lower. Adam’s leg slid across his loosely, until it was across both of his shins, but Ronan ignored it.

He was momentarily wary, waiting for a reaction he knew wouldn’t come. Lynch, like the Widower, wouldn’t hurt him. And he felt unprecedentedly appreciative of the warmth. His brain wasn’t able to fully adjust to the knowledge that he’d never touched his own brother - _Noah wasn’t his brother_ -but he somewhat vaguely understood that it meant he’d been more physically isolated than even he’d realised.

Ronan was curiously close, warm in spite of the muscle-t that he’d stripped down to, revealing muscular arms, long collarbones and the delicate lines of his neck. Adam supposed his metabolism must be accelerated by his abilities. While Adam curled over himself in a sweater, Ronan burned out of his singlet.

He didn’t think about Noah. _Must not avoid unpleasant things_. But he couldn’t think about it, and he couldn’t face the agony of trying to separate his real memories from the false ones. A single, paralysing fact overruled every attempt, overwrote every question, overwhelmed every piece of logic. Noah was his brother. He knew it. He couldn’t forget.

Adam didn’t think about it, and he didn’t cry. He watched Lynch through half-closed eyes until he drifted back to sleep.


	21. Tried and true breakfast choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of comment replies (I'm sure it's actually a relief). It's the season of back to school admin and school holiday work, and the despair runs rampant.

Ronan could hear Parrish breathing, in and out through his nose, with a little bit of effort, like he was trying to be inconspicuous.

He could feel it too, the limited air between the two of them shifting around the rise and fall of Adam’s chest.

It would send him insane. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe it was a punishment… to want something so much it made him ache.

Adam pulled his lower lip into his mouth, white teeth on pale pink. His eyes were closed, but he was awake. Ronan could feel the lingering tension in the way he lay. 

He was so considerably more than Ronan had ever imagined. Heat, yes. Motion, yes. Hair, fluffy and almost frizzy. Skin, an enrapturing canvas of it, marked with Adam’s particular peculiarities, honey coloured, dotted with faded freckles over the bridge of his nose, dusting his sharp cheekbones. Drawn in hungrily over his cheeks. Where the corners of his mouth sat in a perpetual downwards quirk, his cheeks held the unresolved promise of dimples. 

Ronan considered that he’d never seen him smile, not freely. Not sincerely.

His eyes remained closed, permitting Ronan this shameful exercise in admiration, but Ronan still missed them. 

Blue eyes, deep and serious, sometimes ocean-green, sometimes thundery-gray when he let thoughtfulness darken his expression. Skin the colour of southwest dust storms. Hair like sunburnt wheat when the light hit it. Adam looked like a changeling. A creature born of nature rather than a human being. 

Adam took a deeper breath, exhaled, and relinquished his lip from between his teeth.

Ronan watched him closely, relishing the slow torture, the way his forehead smoothed out when he finally slipped back to sleep.

 

So Baby Parrish had never been a Parrish at all. Noah, harmless little Noah, was something else entirely. As Ronan had already hated Chimera, this merely solidified that hatred into something concrete, darker, and more intentional. He would find a way to make him pay for hurting Noah, even if it had been a Noah that Ronan had never known. 

He wondered how Viridiveste had managed to cover up the scandal, quieten down the families. Money, probably. They were always liberal with money.

The matching wreaths, at his parents’ funeral service. Ronan had stared at them blindly for a long time, laid among the others. So many pointless flowers, laid out to die and decompose as if in harmony with the bodies interred below. It had been beautiful, but he hadn’t thought so then. 

Noah’s family would have buried nothing, and maybe they’d received a similar wreath, to commemorate a son and brother who could have been returned to them, at least in part. 

The music temporarily cooled Ronan’s anger. Gansey didn’t like Ronan’s taste in music. He believed the bass heavy, deafening wall of noise was more likely to prevent sleep, more likely to evoke a violent reaction, physical or emotional.

He might have been right, in some cases, but for Ronan it was like hearing something that almost put a form to the ceaseless battery of noise in his head, under his skin. Like finally finding an expression of what it felt like, otherwise inexpressible in word or action.

Sometimes he would have liked to listen to something from the older days, but he knew it would never feel the same as it did then. The Biebl track his father played every Sunday evening, smiling almost ironically at his own choice. Tchaikovsky pieces his mother loved. The American classics. The Irish ballads. 

He looked sideways at Adam, more openly now that he was definitely asleep, on Ronan’s pillow, his leg a reassuring weight across Ronan’s, his expression clear and untroubled as it only was while he slept. It made Ronan feel that he was intruding, taking advantage of Adam’s inability to protest. It made him feel equally vulnerable himself, standing at the edge of a chasm he knew he risked slipping into. Losing sight of everything that had brought him to this moment, just to…

_Chase some foolish infatuation_. 

Only it didn’t feel like infatuation, and it didn’t feel particularly foolish, either. He supposed that didn’t make it any less of an inappropriate distraction. 

If VVC had covered up the transformation of Noah and this asshole Baz, was it possible that Ronan should have been searching there in the first place, instead of avoiding them? What if they were responsible for other superpowered conversions, beyond those Ronan already knew about?

The door didn’t open, but Ronan sensed that he wasn’t alone. He didn’t look away from Adam, cautious of his deep, steady breathing.

‘Back at the apartment. After Kavinsky…’ He said lowly. ‘That was you?’

A shadow flickered in his periphery - Noah coming just close enough to see Adam’s face. ‘I panicked. I didn’t know where he was, but I knew he was scared.’

Noah’s voice was soft, apologetic, and desperately young. 

‘But you didn’t make me go after him.’

Noah shook his head vehemently. ‘No. No, I never- I don’t like to do it. I just give people the impression I’m real, that’s all. And sometimes, I just kind of… know what they think. I don’t try and interfere.’

Ronan recalled, absently, the uncanny knowingness of Noah. He barely minded it, after all this. It was almost a relief to think someone else might have heard the chaos in his head, and hadn’t bolted. Noah had probably heard worse.

‘Baz was no picnic.’ Noah said quietly, as if in confirmation. He was still gazing at Adam, shadowed face etched with regret. 

There was a question Ronan felt the need to ask, an anxious, clawing thing beneath his ribcage that he couldn’t bring himself to say aloud. 

He murmured instead; ‘What did his father do to him?’

‘I couldn’t make him forget.’ Noah mumbled, without directly answering. ‘It’s too much of what he is. I thought about trying, but…’

‘You’d lose him.’ Ronan finished, tone hardened by understanding.

He felt rather than heard Noah exhale. Felt him flicker out of the room, and wondered, uncertainly, if he’d ever been there at all, outside of Ronan’s own head. 

Ronan hadn’t asked him. He was too afraid of the answer, and maybe Noah was too afraid to give it to him. 

Was the Widower another Chimera? Was Ronan another Baz? And would Gansey suffer for Ronan’s inhumanity?

 

 

 

Adam woke up with a sore neck and a heavy head.

He was hungry, too. Hungry and thirsty, like he’d been hollowed out on the inside and there was nothing to do but fill empty space with something physical.

Lynch, difficult, powerful Ronan Lynch was still next to him. He looked washed out and youthful in the morning light, but somehow upright and possibly even awake. Adam thought about rolling onto his other side, risking the sight of whatever hell universe might be occupying the underside of Lynch’s bed in order to bury his face in the cool relief of darkness.

He was contemplating the best way of retrieving his wayward leg without kicking Lynch, when Ronan smiled, cold and cruel, with his eyes closed. Adam hesitated.

He thought perhaps Ronan was laughing at his awkwardness, at his unfamiliarity with this type of casual contact, but when Lynch finally looked at him he said simply; ‘You’re going to miss school.’

Adam did kick him, but only accidentally, while trying to scramble to his feet. 

He hadn’t even registered the dawn light. He hadn’t even thought of school when he’d gone to sleep last night. He’d forgotten the essay, and he’d forgotten to go home. 

It was 6am. Lynch had been premature in assuming that Adam couldn’t pull himself together with sufficient speed to make it to school.

The essay was another story. Most of it was on Gansey’s laptop in Henry’s rooms at Foxway. The start of it was back at Adam’s apartment. 

The same place as his uniforms… which, in any case, he hadn’t been able to get to the laundromat over the weekend.

It was logical to assume that between Gansey and Ronan there would be a semi-functional uniform in this apartment. He could show up to school and get threatened with expulsion for not having the essay, or he could fail to show up to school or produce the essay and actually get expelled for not being signed off by someone with the unimpeachable authority of a Supreme Court Judge. 

He wrenched open Lynch’s wardrobe door, and was singularly stunned by an avalanche of expensive-looking, hardly worn clothing. It took some digging through dark jeans to find school slacks, and there was a tie knotted around a hanger in the shape of a miniature noose, but he couldn’t locate a uniform shirt.

While Lynch’s taste in clothing seemed remarkably consistent, it was obvious he must have had a favourite selection, or possibly it was his propensity to wear the Widower suit that forced the rest of his clothing to lie neglected in a pile. 

Adam turned around, searching haplessly for a chest of drawers or a glimmer of white amongst the rest of Ronan’s things. There was an immense birdcage in one corner, two huge speakers against the wall, books half-kicked across the floor, a remote controlled Batmobile the size of a small dog, a samurai sword, the remnants of a globe that appeared to have been dropped or struck violently, a compound bow, a dartboard with the darts perfectly arranged in the shape of a smiling face with two crosses for eyes, and Ronan’s wide bed, sheets tangled down at the foot.

In the middle of it all, there was Lynch himself, motionlessly watching Adam with a mocking smirk, fantastically suited to the chaotic, sharp-edged black and gray surroundings. 

He allowed Adam to unleash the contents of the wardrobe, and unknot the tie with great haste, only moving with a languid grace to dig about underneath the bed and withdraw a crumpled white shirt.

Adam took the offered item with undignified gratitude. If he could make it across to Foxway, maybe he could piece together the beginning of the essay before fourth period Physics. 

He pushed out Lynch’s door, into the silent hallway, and the weight of the previous evening hit him like a blow to the gut, nearly sinking him to the floor. 

Noah, god, Noah. 

He needed to get to school.

 

The apartment was empty. 

At first Adam assumed Gansey and Ronan were merely late risers, and Henry and Blue might have returned to their own homes the previous evening, or earlier that morning, more likely. But the door to Gansey’s room hung open in the hall, and the living room had the air of pensive silence reserved for an empty house. 

Lynch was probably only a late riser because he apparently didn’t sleep.

There was a bag on Gansey’s desk. Adam barely let himself hope, but a closer inspection revealed it was actually the laptop bag, with all of Adam’s work carefully preserved inside. He didn’t remember bringing it with him the night before, but nothing had been particularly clear.

Maybe Gansey had grabbed it.

Or…

Lynch wandered into the room lazily, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Adam followed him. ‘Where did they go?’ He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, really, he just wanted… he just needed to make sure nothing had _happened_.

‘Back to Foxway.’ Ronan shrugged, opening the fridge, closing it again, and opening the freezer. ‘Mystery Incorporated have another monster to unmask.’

‘Watch a lot of daytime cartoons, do you?’ Adam sniped automatically, and wished he hadn’t. Ronan just smirked, dug out a tub of ice-cream, and started eating it with the direct and uncompromising wilfulness of a misbehaving toddler.

Adam rubbed his eyes with his free hand, clutching a handful of Ronan’s clothes in the other. 

He must have brought back the laptop bag. He’d driven back separately, and followed them inside. 

Blue’s indication of how Ronan had lost his parents was enough to suggest how incredibly painful it must have been for him. Caedes was two, three years ago, now? Ronan would have been fifteen, maybe sixteen. Maybe not as dangerous and ferocious as he was now. Definitely not the Widower back then. The very idea of it made Adam predisposed to behave sympathetically, patiently, forgivingly… but standing opposite Ronan seemed to efficiently counteract that effect. It was as though Ronan put careful effort into ensuring that there was not a single crack in his demeanour that would permit anyone’s unsuspecting pity.

Adam wondered if it was intentional or not. And he wondered if Ronan had any suspicion of how much the return of his book bag, or the foresight to bring the laptop, would mean to him, or if it was an aimless sort of compulsion.

He backtracked out of the kitchen and down the hall, heading for the bathroom. 

 

By the time he managed to leave the inviting heat and pressure of the Monmouth shower, Lynch had settled onto the couch in front of the television. He’d finished the ice-cream, and was now consuming hard liquor while watching some unfamiliar looking crime program. 

‘Jesus, Lynch.’ Adam again failed to suppress a reaction as he was collecting the laptop bag.

Ronan looked around at him, but didn’t respond, which was either deliberately tactful or just disinterested. 

Lynch’s shirt was a little wide, and his slacks a little too long, but his clothes were probably a better option for Adam than Gansey’s shorter ones. The only problem was Adam’s scuffed sneakers, but he was hoping to swap out of them when he got home. 

Ronan’s silent stare might have been due to his awkward attire, so Adam swallowed and turned towards the door. 

‘You’re going now.’ Lynch observed abruptly. It took a moment for Adam to understand his meaning.

‘I’ll go by home.’ He explained rapidly. He felt nervous. It was barely quarter to seven, and he thought he had time to reach the apartment. Maybe the essay wasn’t as good as he’d thought. Maybe that was what was bothering him. ‘I left some work there.’

Ronan leaned forward, plucked something from his back pocket, and threw it in a slow arc towards Adam. He caught it, but barely. _Car keys_.

’Take the car.’ Ronan suggested offhandedly, turning back to the TV.

Adam snorted, staring at the keys with blatant confusion. He didn’t move. He couldn’t tell which part of Ronan’s sentence he should try and tackle first.

He settled for the definitive one. ‘I _can’t_ drive.’ It sounded strange… maybe it was his own shock. ‘I can’t _drive_.’

Ronan’s BMW. That strange, alluring, expensive beast. And he just handed over the keys to Adam like it was _nothing_ …

Unbelievable. Adam was living in a crazy illogical universe. 

He wasn’t, apparently, alone in that thought. 

With a startling degree of self-restraint, Lynch swivelled to shoot him a look of complete disbelief. ‘What?’

Adam felt like an intensely-scrutinised freak of nature. He blushed a little too readily. He wanted to argue “Even if I could drive, I couldn’t drive THAT” but no words came out of his mouth.

 

 

 

Ronan felt trapped. Fragile. 

He could tell Parrish he’d go to the apartment, get the work, and drop it at the school during break. He could tell Parrish he’d had too much to drink to drive anywhere. He could easily tell Parrish to just fuck off.

But he could not, he _could not_ , get in the BMW with Adam right now. 

Not while Adam was wearing Ronan’s clothes. Not while his hair was wet and curling like tendrils of gold around his ears. Not while he looked so uncharacteristically tentative.

While he behaved, Ronan realised sharply, as if it was the Widower he was talking to instead of Ronan. 

He couldn’t stop staring. He tried incredibly hard, but he couldn’t stop himself.

What kind of backwards seventeen-year-old (was he seventeen?) couldn’t drive?

What kind of nightmare world would he be living in, not being able to get anywhere of his own volition?

Jesus Christ, that was probably the saddest thing Ronan had ever learned about Adam Parrish… notwithstanding the abduction, the fake brother, the lying vigilante friend and the apparently evil father. 

Eventually, Adam cleared his throat, and Ronan started and mumbled; ‘ _Dear God_.’

He didn’t have to pretend to drop his head into his hands, muttering recriminations and colourful swear words. They were fairly comprehensive. Parrish was included, and so was Ronan himself, with some sidelong criticisms of Gansey, Sargent, Cheng and even Noah along the way. Chainsaw got an honorary mention for waking up at an ill-advised moment and fluttering over to Adam from the windowsill, perching on his shoulder and prodding him expectantly with her beak.

Ronan had mistakenly assumed things couldn’t get any worse.

‘I…’ He recited with sincere difficulty. ‘I will… drive… you.’

‘That’s not-’

‘Fuck it.’ Ronan cut him off. He stood up and headed toward the door, still leaning his head into one palm dramatically, emulating a headache but actually far more concerned with avoiding direct visual appraisal of Parrish.

A small part of Ronan’s mind reminded him that Adam was Gansey’s friend, Gansey was Ronan’s friend, and friends did meaningless helpful things for their friends sometimes. An equally small, but exceptionally sarcastic and bitter part of Ronan’s mind echoed “ _friends did meaningless helpful things for their friends sometimes_ ” in a shrill and mocking jeer.

Henry’s Fisker was still downstairs. Ronan wished he had kept the keys.

He opened the BMW instead, watched Parrish open the door and fold himself in, carefully, like he didn’t want to accidentally touch the interior with his peasant hands. 

Ronan still hesitated before he climbed in. He was afraid of that old habit of confession. To his parents, or in church. A deeply ingrained desire to tell the truth, perhaps strengthened by the necessity of keeping so many secrets for so long. There were things he hadn’t revealed in church, and there were things he’d never told his parents, just like there were things he couldn’t tell Gansey and there were other things he definitely _shouldn’t_ tell Parrish. 

He climbed into the car. 

It was 7am. Adam hadn’t eaten. Ronan couldn’t feel the effects of the alcohol. He only felt the effects of Adam Parrish. 

 

‘Are you alright?’

Ronan looked over, surprised. He’d been replaying the events of the previous two days, trying to think of any weakness they might have discovered in Chimera’s power. It wasn’t strictly necessary. Gansey and the others would be doing the same, with a lot more precision, but it was a helpful distraction. Leaving Monmouth exposed Ronan to the harsh daylight and the gray concrete surfaces of the city streets, and the accompanying feelings of disgust and suspicion.

Parrish nodded faintly at Ronan’s shoulder, having returned to his former impenetrable calmness.

‘Fine.’ Ronan answered roughly. He hadn’t checked his face this morning, but he couldn’t feel the raised scars on his back anymore. He was without the suit though, and he probably would be until Gansey stopped placing such extensive demands on Cheng’s time. 

Ronan would have been able to repair the tech easily enough (he still had his webshooters) but he didn’t have the same unimpeded and untraceable access to the reinforced fabric required. Or the sewing skills.

He was vaguely curious about how Parrish was coping with Noah’s revelation, but he doubted Adam wanted to discuss it. He seemed wholly focused on getting his assignment and getting to school, much to Ronan’s distaste. Maybe he was enabling Adam’s self-destructive behaviour, but _Ronan_ hardly had the right to criticise, or to try and stop him.

The apartment building was a wretched monument against an overcast sky. Ronan wondered if Adam had always lived there, or if it had been a result of Noah’s intervention. He wondered if Adam would actually move into Monmouth, now that he was technically alone. It seemed unlikely. 

He wondered if it would be worse to know that every morning he could be encountering Parrish in his own apartment, until it became as common and comfortable as Gansey’s presence. _That_ seemed impossible.

Ronan waited in the car. 

His phone rang while Parrish was gone. Gansey’s ringtone. He ignored it. He rarely minded speaking to Gansey, but he minded the effort of listening and responding, the obligation of an open line. 

The ringing stopped as Adam climbed back into the car. He had his bag, different shoes, but still Ronan’s clothing. 

‘You’re not going to answer?’

Ronan passed him the phone and pulled out into the street, but Adam just looked at it with a similar reservation to someone being passed a cactus. 

It took him a while to decide to dial, and he still looked unconvinced when he lifted the phone to his ear.

‘Gansey.’

‘Yeah. On the way to school.’

‘No, I can’t. No, I - What did you find?’

‘I can’t. Okay. I’ll tell him.’

Parrish’s voice was a flat, consistent tone throughout the conversation. Whatever Gansey told him, he seemed beyond surprise.

He looked across at Ronan, staring pointedly out the windscreen at the traffic ahead. ‘Gansey asked for you at Foxway.’

‘What for?’ Ronan’s tightened his grip on the wheel. _Viridiveste_. They must have continued digging. 

‘Henry thinks he found another project.’ Adam explained. ‘A new attempt at the same design.’

‘ _What_?’

‘A copy of the quantum portal. He wants you to determine if that’s what it is.’

‘Current?’

‘A few years back.’

‘Did they bury that too?’ Ronan could feel the skin prickling along the backs of his arms. What the hell were they thinking, rebuilding it? Did they really want a portal, or did they want something else? A way of manufacturing powered individuals?

‘I don’t know.’

Ronan dropped Adam at Aglionby, but it took him a while to drive out of the carpark. He hated that place, he hated even thinking about being there, but it was worse to leave Adam alone, and worse still to leave in order to confront what grim secrets VVC had been concealing in decades of unauthorised research. 

He stayed until the bell rang for first period.


	22. Hide and Seek, the Toy Room, and when puberty strikes unexpectedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You marvellous, wonderful, lovely people.

It hadn’t been the Veil’s best week. Blue was questioning, again, whether trying to establish themselves as an organisation had been a mistake.

The publicity had been problematic, after they’d dealt with Leech, but they should have been able to keep quiet for a little while and let it fade away. It wasn’t as though she didn’t like working with Henry, but there was a little too much pressure involved in trying to keep the world turning without crossing swords with the law.

The headaches hadn’t completely stopped, yet. Every three or four hours she felt another stab of pain, brief but hideous. She told Gansey it had passed. He was already worried, and now he was facing Noah’s explanation of how Chimera had been created. Not only an accident, but an accident caused by the psychopath himself.

_Poor Noah._

Gansey had commandeered one of Henry’s monitors, and he was inspecting the files Henry was prying out of the darkest reaches of VVC’s database. Blue was in the office too, but contented herself with sketching Noah one-handed while he sat and wistfully watched her eat yoghurt.

‘You don’t eat?’

‘Can’t.’ He admitted sadly.

She drew his face, the fragile outline of it, noticing that he was slightly harder to perceive than usual even under the bright lights.

‘Do you have holidays soon?’ He asked vaguely, glancing across at the others.

‘A couple of weeks.’ Blue told him. ‘Maybe we can take a trip.’

‘Venezuela is nice this time of year.’ Henry reported cheerfully. ‘Team vacay?’

‘Please.’ Blue said softly.

The door in the outer room thumped open. Ronan had arrived. He’d gone back to his usual outfit of alarmingly slim clothing and hostility.

‘Nerds.’ He delivered a general greeting as he pushed into the office.

‘Ronan.’ Gansey waved him over. ‘Look at this.’

Ronan examined the diagrams (unlabelled) in silence. Blue looked back at her sketch, and wrote in elaborate lettering underneath “C.Z.E.R.N.Y.”

‘It’s similar.’ Ronan observed grimly. ‘Smaller. Some additions.’

He flung himself into one of the free desk chairs they’d wheeled in. ‘Do you recognise this?’

Noah shook his head. ‘After my time.’

‘Similar, though. To your work.’

Blue wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think Ronan was being accusing. Noah blinked nervously a few times, avoided looking at the computer. ‘After the modifications Baz made. A different scale, maybe. Trying to make it work over a fraction of the distance.’

Ronan started up from his chair suddenly, making Noah flinch, but he just leafed through a stack of papers on Gansey’s desk.

‘This asshole-’ He snapped, drawing out one sheet and brandishing it at Noah. ‘ - this guy, he’s the one?’

Blue caught the paper that Noah didn’t reach for. It was one of the waivers, signed at the bottom with the typing underneath. “ _Barrington Whelk_.”

‘Where would he go?’ Ronan hissed. ‘Where do we find him?’

Gansey lifted a hand in appeasement at the same time as Blue whispered; ‘ _Lynch_.’

‘We don’t know how to stop him.’ Gansey protested wearily. He glanced at Blue, concerned, and she scowled. ‘We can’t take him on yet.’

‘We don’t have the power to stop him.’ Blue added, a sardonic acknowledgement of what Gansey wasn’t saying. She shot another warning look at Ronan. Despite his paranoia about Gansey finding out he was the Widower, he didn’t have enough control over his temper to avoid dangerous outbursts.

When Gansey’s loyalty to Ronan ran up against his principles, Ronan nearly always won, but killing was on a different level. Blue understood why Ronan was scared of him finding out. She couldn’t help but feel anxious of it herself, especially after Adam’s reaction to Noah the day before.

Sure, Ronan hadn’t actually been in Gansey’s head, but their friendship was indispensable to both of them. It wasn’t worth risking it.

‘Shouldn’t we do something about that?’ Ronan continued bitterly. ‘Instead of picking through this crap?’

Henry swivelled in his chair. ‘Some of it persists in evading me.’ He winked so brazenly at Ronan that Blue choked on a mouthful of yoghurt.

Irritation warred with disbelief for a few seconds on Ronan’s face, and he abruptly gave up and slumped back into his chair, childishly petulant.

Blue didn’t need to be psychic to know VVC’s systems hid something more threatening to Ronan than memories of his parents, and she knew Henry well enough to realise he was covering it up.

She abandoned her sketchbook and scooted her chair across to Gansey’s side.

He was wearing his glasses, sifting through documents related to Project Wei. She put her hand on the desk and he laid his own over it appreciatively.

‘What _are_ you looking for?’

‘I don’t know.’ He answered. She narrowed her eyes, and he yielded guiltily. ‘What if there are more? Here? The extent of the work they’ve been doing…’ He squeezed her hand anxiously.

‘We can’t solve everything.’ Blue reminded him. ‘We don’t run the city.’

Ronan said something to Noah, behind them, but it sounded calmer than before so Blue ignored it.

‘I know.’ Gansey looked at her apologetically. ‘I’m not saying we should. I’m not saying _you_ should be doing any more. Maybe you should be doing less…’

He trailed off, met with a glowering expression.

‘ _You_ don’t run the city.’ She repeated coolly. Gansey’s sense of responsibility far exceeded his common sense, at times. She squeezed his hand in return anyway. ‘There was someone in Washington worth saving. It just… wasn’t Chimera.’

Blue had seen pictures of 10-year-old Gansey. Already bright and brilliant. She wondered sometimes what he would have taken to if Washington had never happened. Where would he have directed all that intellect, that fervent energy? Politics maybe, or the philosophy he loved so much. He’d never have come to the city, never moved into Monmouth, started at Aglionby, and picked up as best he could after Ronan’s heartbreak. He’d never have met Henry, and never have been tricked into encountering Blue.

What would have happened here, without Gansey? Would Leech have won the fight? Would the Veil have died as a concept, and the city have been dragged into a quagmire?

And Gansey, annoying though he could be, might have ended up as a politician. Blue could almost imagine seeing his handsome face on the television, and responding to his carefully sculpted charm with reflexive distrust. Gansey would always have been moral… but perhaps he’d have been too distant from reality to act upon that.

‘Hey!’

Blue and Gansey both twisted around. Ronan was sniggering, sitting on the desk next to Blue’s sketch, and Noah looked mildly accusing.

‘I’ve _seen_ you pick things up.’ Ronan noted, still smirking.

‘I _can_ pick things up.’ Noah complained. He turned and leaned to demonstrate, snagging something with his fingers- Blue’s pen, from where Ronan had flicked it through Noah’s incorporeal torso to the floor.

He put the pen back on the desk. Ronan prodded his shoulder lightly. ‘How are you doing that?’

‘Effort.’ Noah admitted miserably.

‘So you’re telekinetic?’

He shrugged. ‘A bit.’

‘How much is a bit? Could you lift a car?’ He seemed unconvinced, but Ronan continued gleefully;‘Could you lift _me_?’

Noah’s face cleared slightly. ‘Maybe.’

Blue opened her mouth to protest, but the prospect of seeing Noah (body or no body) try and pick Ronan up was too good to miss.

Noah was, in fact, able to lift Ronan telekinetically, although he didn’t pretend to use his own arms, which was a shame. Somehow the idea of smallish, narrow shouldered Noah trying to pick up long, lean Lynch remained a source of great amusement to Blue. Ronan, oddly, seemed much more entertained by this activity than she would have expected.

Afterwards he challenged Noah to a variety of games of strength and reflexes. He seemed to have accepted the likelihood that Noah already knew his secret identity. While Gansey stayed distracted in the office, Ronan and Noah ran all over the house, finding things to throw and lift. At one point Blue thought they might have even been playing Hide & Seek.

She found them on the fire escape out the back of the building when she was getting ready to leave for afternoon classes. Ronan was doing a handstand on the railing, and Noah was copying (or pretending to copy) him.

Noah materialised on his feet next to her meekly, but Ronan just scratched his nose lazily with one hand.

‘Can I see?’ Noah reached for her sketchbook, and Blue let him leaf through the pages. There were a lot of Gansey, and Maura. One caricature of Orla, a group sketch of Pythia around the kitchen table. One of Persephone beside a lake, which Blue had indulged herself with. Several of Henry - tinkering, laughing, and one of him in the suit. A couple of Ronan, driving or lounging about. Drawing him mid-handstand held a lot of appeal, but Gansey liked looking through her work.

‘Henry’s going to get Adam after school.’ She told Noah gently. His expression faded to reluctant sadness.

‘He won’t come.’ Noah sounded gloomy.

Ronan folded himself out of the handstand, precariously fast.

‘Have a little faith in Henry.’ Blue advised drily. ‘He can be annoyingly persuasive.’

Noah stopped on the most recent page of her sketchbook, with the drawing of himself and his name, and almost immediately closed the book, but not before she caught a glimpse of the word written in the bottom corner in Ronan’s erratic, capitalised handwriting. _Remembered_.

 

 

 

Adam wasn’t surprised to find Henry Cheng waiting for him in the car park.

He wasn’t driving the Fisker, but some incredibly shiny, new-looking black Audi, parked up nonchalantly right by the school steps so Adam couldn’t miss it.

It seemed like a common assumption that Adam was either blind or avoidant, but he humbly considered himself neither, and got into the passenger seat.

‘Parrish.’ Henry remarked amiably, aviators slung low on the bridge of his nose.

‘Cheng.’ Adam responded wearily.

‘You’re looking svelte.’ Henry observed, without glancing at him. ‘New shirt?’

Adam blushed, unable to fully summon a response. Sure, Ronan’s clothes were… a little too big, but it wasn’t anything particularly noticeable.

Henry drove to Foxway, forcing the Audi to purr and idle along city streets it was never designed for. There was an antique shop a few buildings along from the Veil, with a loading bay that Henry very carefully nosed into. The roller door was automated, and briskly closed them into quiet, faintly ominous darkness.

‘How was school?’ Henry asked blithely.

Adam shrugged, and jumped when the concrete slab beneath the car gave way with a jolt. He dug his fingers into the seat leather and peered out his window at the structure sliding past. ‘What is this?’

‘Use your imagination.’ Henry smiled cheerfully. Adam was forced to re-acknowledge the concept that _this_ teenager was a superhero.

‘Your underground lair.’ Adam said wryly, as the platform, and the car, came to a halt.

Opening out in front of them was a wide, open room with every appearance of an underground garage. Fluorescent lights flickered on in rows of three stretched across the broad ceiling, glimmering off the sleek curves of sports cars, stainless steel work benches and shells of metal armour.

Henry pulled up in the middle of the room, and Adam climbed out, awestruck. There were at least seventeen different suits of armour, maybe more in pieces on and around the benches.

‘I thought you had one suit.’ Adam admitted slowly. They weren’t all Ironbee’s colours, and they weren’t all the same shape, but they were all unmistakably Henry’s work.

Henry pushed open his door and got out, ditching his sunglasses on the car seat. ‘Really? That would be tedious.’

He circled the car, joining Adam in front of the display. ‘Check this out.’ He nudged a suit, one the gray colour of unsprayed metal, and it seemed to vanish instantly.

Adam stumbled closer. ‘What happened?’

‘Retro-reflective cloaking.’ Henry laid his palm flat in the air, and fibres of energy crept away from the edges of his hand, indicating the presence of the metal beneath it.

Adam copied him, then trailed a hand against the wall and watched it flicker across the image on the panels. ‘That’s incredible.’

‘Naturally.’ Henry puffed up proudly.

Adam hesitated, traced the outline of the suit. ‘Why?’

‘All this?’ Henry smiled. ‘I’d like to say why not, but-’

He waved a hand theatrically. ‘It’s emblematic. It’s compulsive, really.’

‘Emblematic of what?’ Adam asked carefully.

‘Of power.’ Henry paused. ‘Of self-efficacy, perhaps.’

He moved to the next suit, sprayed in camouflage colours. ‘My mother is a diplomat, you know.’

‘I heard.’

‘The North didn’t take too kindly to some of the opinions she held, back home. They attempted a rudimentary form of re-education.’

Adam felt slightly sick, off-balance. Gansey and Washington, Ronan and Caedes, Noah and VVC, and now this. It was like watching a Greek tragedy unfold, one awful scene after the next.

‘I’m sorry.’ Adam murmured. ‘Is she-’

‘She was fine.’ Henry smiled brightly, the sombre mood suddenly evaporating. ‘And thanks to terrible standards of nutrition and my own ingenuity, I was too.’

Adam blinked at him uncertainly, and Henry moved further along, still smiling.

‘Attempted kidnapping and imprisonment.’ He explained brightly. ‘And the source of all my glory. I resolved to defend myself henceforth.’

Adam walked in the opposite direction to Henry, examining suit after suit after suit. Emblematic of power, indeed.

‘Why here?’

Henry laughed. ‘Peace and quiet.’

Adam snorted quietly, and Henry added; ‘It’s a great place to hide… progress _and_ people.’

‘Why hide?’ Adam had never taken Henry for the reserved type, and Ironbee was hardly timid. Although, in fairness, the appearances Adam had heard about lacked the range and sophistication of the technology Adam could see just from where he was standing.

Henry made a noise of vague disinterest. ‘Why not?’ He repeated absently. ‘I have no cause against which to declare my strength.’

‘But the Veil-’

‘The Veil is designed to defend the city, I admit. But Ironbee is designed to defend _my_ interests. In part, this inner city pocket of seclusion, in part, the wonderfully tenacious Aegis. And Gansey Three, or course.’ He paused again, stared unseeingly across the room. ‘Have you ever met someone so outrageously pure of heart?’

He sounded almost mocking, but Adam suspected he was being entirely serious.

‘A very rare creature, the innocent man.’ Henry concluded. ‘Gansey and Blue and those marvellous psychic ladies, quite worth risking oneself for.’

‘They are your interests.’ Adam mused patiently. ‘Not the city. So why bother maintaining the coalition?’

‘People are reliably more supportive of something they believe is for their protection. I cannot speak for the others, but it is little more than favourable publicity to me.’

A distant memory, sharply brought into focus, drew Adam’s attention away from the armour.

The Widower, Ronan Lynch. Two words. _“Leave him.”_ And his grip hauling Adam upright and away. Had the Widower’s motivation ever been the preservation of life? Or the defence of innocent people, who, as Henry Cheng said, were exceedingly rare?

Or was Ronan merely on a mission of punishment for the guilty? And if that was true, where did he draw the line?

Henry swung on his spotless shoes and grinned. ‘Shall you try one on?’

 

 

 

Henry’s underground garage attached to the basement of Foxway, but Adam didn’t realise until Gansey appeared by one of the cars. Adam was neck deep in the cloaking suit, and Henry was holding the helmet. He couldn’t reach to get it on Adam’s head, and Adam was struggling with the mechanics of using his hands without engaging the weapons system, so Henry had resorted to climbing into a pair of boots.

‘I wondered where you were.’ Gansey said mildly, navigating around the vehicles and the benches. ‘Is this a new model, Henry?’

Henry calmly polished his fingernails on the left breast of his jacket. Adam fidgeted, overtly conscious of the added bulk and weight of his limbs, and inadvertently activated the booster, throwing himself sideways with more force than he’d been expecting.

Henry grabbed his arms and straightened him up. ‘Alright, that’s fine. You’ll get the hang of it.’

‘Hang of it.’ Adam repeated intently. Henry kicked off the ground with his own boosters and hovered, carefully fixing the helmet onto Adam’s head. A blue display appeared, registering heat signatures and pinpointing the weapons in the other suits, and immediately targeting Henry’s face with an unthreatening halo of gold.

‘There.’ Henry said, with considerable satisfaction. ‘We’ll make a superhero of you yet, Parrish.’

Gansey leaned on one of the benches and watched. ‘Is that field-ready?’

‘The suit is.’ Henry smirked. He prodded the chest plate, making Adam want to rock back on his feet, but he couldn’t move. ‘Alright, now, just point your hands to the floor, and push your toes down.’

Adam complied, and nothing happened.

‘Hm.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Gansey counselled warmly. ‘I backflipped into a wall my first time.’

With concern, Adam squinted at him, but the expression clearly wasn’t conveyed through the mask, because Gansey and Henry both continued to smile.

‘Maybe it’s his shoes.’ Gansey suggested.

‘It’s not calibrated for him, exactly.’ Henry modestly dipped his head. ‘Parrish doesn’t share my nuanced mannerisms.’

Adam tried shifting his weight, emulating his earlier movement, and quite accidentally rocketed off his feet. Henry jumped back to avoid an armour-plated arm as it swung past, and Gansey ducked. Adam swore involuntarily as the room spun, but managed to get a hand against the wall and steady himself.

‘Damn.’ He looked around, and realised belatedly that he was still a good three feet off the ground. ‘ _Damn_.’

Gansey gave him thumbs up. ‘You’re getting it now.’

Adam tried to nod, and the suit whirred.

He could understand Henry’s obsession. The power in the suit, the feeling of security and strength combined made him feel invulnerable. He wanted to _keep_ it. If he had Henry’s mind, of course he’d be building _more_. He’d never stop.

‘Alright, now engage cloaking.’ Henry instructed. It must have been a verbal command, because the display in front of Adam’s eyes lit up excitedly.

‘Jesus.’ Gansey remarked. And subsequently; ‘Christ.’

Adam lowered his hands gingerly, and manoeuvred himself sideways a few feet, upwards, downwards, and up again. Gansey’s gaze tracked the flares from his gloves, but not him, exactly, and Henry looked pleased with his work.

Gansey flipped his wrist over. ‘I’m going to pick up Blue. I’ll see you when we get back, right?’

‘Sure.’ Adam breathed, trying not to fling himself against anything.

Henry saluted dramatically, and Gansey left.

It took the better part of an hour to master the basics of moving without threatening the life of anyone in the vicinity. Adam tried on several of the other suits, at Henry’s request, and finally settled on a narrow design with a metallic bronze honeycomb pattern and crosshatched golden eyes as his favourite. Henry called it “ _The Hornet_.”

Henry finally, and reluctantly, recommended that they go to join the others. Gansey had long since returned with Blue, and they were with Ronan and Noah in the same living room Adam had first entered. He recalled, with almost superstitious unease, Persephone’s words to him. Could she have foreseen what happened with Noah? Could any of them? And he still wasn’t sure what about himself was so unpleasant to Calla.

Gansey was sitting on the sofa, Blue’s legs stretched across his knees and a book open on top of her calves. Lynch was sitting on the floor, toying with (and possibly breaking) a robotic dog, and Noah was opposite him.

Adam felt his stomach seize at the sight of Noah. He felt his mind spiral out of focus, out of stable contact with everything that he knew to be fact. And again, that uncompromising certainty. _Noah was his brother._

Was that the damage he’d done? Was Adam’s clarity forever ruined because he couldn’t argue with a lie?

Noah looked up and went extremely still and silent, prompting Lynch to glance over.

Gansey intervened with forcible zest. ‘Adam! How did you go with that assignment, by the way?’

Blue craned her neck slightly and waved.

‘Finished.’ Adam conceded politely. He didn’t explain that he had hastily mashed it together during other classes and scrambled to get it formatted and printed during break. If it damaged his averages, he’d never hear the end of it. He couldn’t look at Noah, so he looked at Lynch instead, a steady glance which tried to say; _We’re even_.

Ronan looked bored and turned back to the dog.

Adam pulled Gansey’s laptop bag off his shoulder and carefully placed it on the empty sofa. ‘What did you find out?’

Gansey opened his mouth to answer and was cut off by a loud and alarming beep. Henry, in the process of arranging himself in his preferred armchair, examined his watch.

‘It would appear we have an unexpected visitor.’ He smiled pleasantly.

Blue sat up. ‘Who?’

‘Oh. Ah, yes, it happens to be… your favourite cousin.’

Blue’s groan must have been audible from downstairs.

 

 

 

It wasn’t long before the cousin in question stormed the castle. Blue refused to go downstairs to meet her, and refused to allow anyone else to either, despite Gansey’s discomfort. Adam was nearly worried by the time the door burst open.

His concerns, if not unfounded, were severely misplaced.

Blue’s cousin was an Amazon. One second Adam was safely wrapped in the homey, if socially stilted, surrounds of Blue’s living room, and the next he was face-to-face with a figure from a glossy magazine. She was as tall as Adam, maybe taller, and wearing long striped slacks that only accentuated her height.

Adam stood up instinctively, and was relieved to discover that both Henry and Gansey had done the same, and though Lynch remained seated he observed her with undisguised curiosity. Noah, apparently, had vanished upon her entrance, which unsettled Adam significantly more than he liked.

‘Wow, are you having a party?’ This was directed sarcastically at Blue, who promptly sneered and ignored her. ‘So nice to see you all again… Henry, Gansey… you must be new?’

She stalked forward as she spoke, until she was leaning over the back of the couch and offering her long, tawny hand to Adam.

‘This is Adam Parrish.’ Gansey supplied helpfully, as Adam mutely shook her hand. ‘Adam, this is Orla.’

‘Lovely to meet you.’ She continued, drawing out the word “lovely” and holding on to Adam’s hand just a moment longer than expected. She let go, smiling confidently, and turned her attentive gaze on Lynch. ‘Ronan, won’t you get up and say hello properly?’

Adam wasn’t sure what a proper hello meant for this incredible being, but he was thoroughly convinced it was not the cool smirk she received.

It was Lynch at his finest, arrogant and aloof, and Adam realised, with a spark of sudden understanding, that the appearance of this woman had absolutely no affect on Ronan whatsoever. He wasn’t concealing or controlling any response, he was simply indifferent to her presence.

Adam’s confusion was rapidly displaced by Henry’s interruption.

‘Perhaps you’ve heard of our new opponent.’ He inquired, drawing Orla’s focus, unwillingly, away from Lynch.

Adam looked at Henry, and back at Orla, and finally at Gansey with a pleading expression. He didn’t really know how to interpret this, on top of everything else. Was Orla a psychic? Did she work for the Veil?

Gansey’s expression betrayed anxious relief, but he, too, was distracted by the cousin. ‘Would you be willing to assist us?’

Blue sat up, slowly, and met Adam’s searching gaze with a singularly scornful look. ‘My cousin-’ She delivered acerbically. ‘-is better known to the public as the _super_ heroic _Nova_.’


	23. Another heart breaks: ELO circa 1981

Orla’s arrival didn’t improve Blue’s already tenuous mood. The team dispersed rapidly in response to the chilling atmosphere. Henry returned to his garage and then on to home, and Gansey drove Adam to his apartment before heading to Monmouth. Noah had disappeared too quickly and efficiently to ascertain where he’d been going and when he’d be back.

Gansey hadn’t found much in VVC’s files. Their explorations were vast and incredibly varied, extending into everything from robotics, to energy sources, to virtual reality hardware, nanotechnology, medical equipment and research, genetically modified food and pharmaceutical chemical synthesis. None of it suggested any further superhero transformations. And none of the information Henry had passed to him was related to biogenetics. None of it was the work of Ronan’s parents.

Maybe he just hadn’t reached it yet. Maybe they were buried under too many other studies and projects and names.

He accepted that school was necessary on Tuesday, and that taking Blue out after her classes on Wednesday was necessary to give her an extra break from Orla.

‘She’s always in Henry’s office.’ Blue commented bitterly, curled up in the Pig’s passenger seat. ‘She’s all over him. As _if_ Henry would be interested.’

Gansey paused to reflect on the height difference absently, and responded; ‘Henry doesn’t mind.’

‘No, I’m sure it amuses _him_ , but it’s damn difficult to get any work done. And what help is she going to be, anyway? She spends half her time on the phone and she doesn’t even know what we’re trying to track!’

Gansey already knew they weren’t having any luck. Chimera seemed to have vanished off the face of the planet, which was frightening in so many ways. And Henry wouldn’t have made any progress through the mountain of secure VVC files either, given that he’d been at school with Gansey and Adam all day.

Adam was almost as alarmed by Orla as his brother- _as Noah_ \- had been. He still looked quizzical and faintly worried whenever anyone mentioned her, although it might have been a result of finding out she had the ability to spontaneously burst into flame.

He’d refused to return to Foxway anyway, or Monmouth, on the grounds that he had homework and laundry and possibly extra shifts to manage. Gansey consoled himself with the knowledge that it was all probably true.

And Ronan… was just being Ronan.

‘I don’t know how she’ll be useful against Chimera.’ Blue said disparagingly. ‘If a missile didn’t work.’

‘I just feel better knowing we have tactical support.’ Gansey explained, pulling into a car space. ‘I don’t think she’s going to defeat him.’

Besides being the truth, this admission calmed Blue’s vitriol considerably. ‘Good.’ She answered comfortably. ‘Because that would be unrealistic.’

There was a special evening showing at the art museum. Renaissance painters. Blue had already been twice, but Gansey liked art at night time. He thought it made the human mind more receptive to expression.

‘Venezuela?’ After half an hour, Gansey deemed it an appropriate time to ask.

Blue shook her head sensibly. ‘Not until after I graduate, of course.’

He hesitated, and she added; ‘Are you really thinking of staying here, now that you’ve found Chimera?’

‘Found him.’ Gansey echoed.

‘We’ll find a way to control him, or to contain him, I guess.’ She continued. ‘Then what?’

Gansey rarely thought that far ahead. Everything had been dedicated to this search, to uncovering the mystery of where Chimera had come from, what had really happened, and where he had gone after Washington. Even the explanation Noah had given left Gansey feeling adrift… untethered. It was all slightly anti-climactic, which he felt awful for thinking.

He found himself staring at a painting, vacantly considering the passage of history, the thread of events that led to the two of them standing in a museum together, turning their infinitely capable minds towards the future. He didn’t think about leaving town. Not until things with Chimera were settled.

And there was more than that. Doubts. About leaving Ronan, about leaving Monmouth and Foxway, the few places Gansey had ever been able to feel at home and purposeful. A sense of unfinished business.

‘I need… closure.’ He said finally, and with great uneasiness.

Blue took his hand, and his distress ebbed away. Everything could improve, so long as Blue was with him. She was an anchor for his mind amongst the fraying edges of reality.

His childhood had always suggested two options, the right path and the wrong path, and the right path consisted of exemplary academic performance, a glowing career in a respectable field, and a sensible, attentive relationship which led to marriage and progeny.

Part of Gansey still considered this an accurate analysis. He often felt misguided and excitable, chasing his own fancies across the country away from his family and his former life. But he’d met the others, one after another, and he felt he might have been increasingly convinced that the right way was just closed-minded. There were more possibilities than the perfect public image. There was Gansey’s new, chaotic and powerful family, a collection of people he suspected would be kindly termed misfits by his own parents.

And there was footwork. The feeling of being grounded and human.

Some of it wasn’t particularly pleasant. Watching countless, irreversible crimes take place over Henry’s monitors. Watching Ronan lose his temper and break things and drink himself to sleep. Watching Blue push herself to dangerous limits in order to prove something, which he could only hope wasn’t to him. Watching Henry brush off small incidents with the casual amorality of broken faith.

But it made the better things even brighter. It made good people even more precious to him.

‘Is that why you’re still searching?’ Blue’s voice was calm, but stern. It was a thankful impossibility to hide things from her.

‘No.’ He confessed, turning from the painting. There was Blue, the very image of unexpected personality, and a flawlessly straightforward mind to subvert expectations.

‘What _are_ you looking for?’

Gansey drew her over to one of the long leather couches in front of a large, tragic scene in muted colours.

‘It’s about Ronan.’ He said heavily, and one of Blue’s eyebrows quirked up. It wasn’t a reprimand, but Gansey felt guilty anyway.

‘Something came up, while I was researching conspiracies. It’s… It’s Caedes.’

At this comment, Blue looked actively startled. ‘About the explosion?’ The colour drained out of her face. ‘You didn’t find some crazy theory about who did it- _Gansey!_ ’

He shook his head quickly. People had been spouting rumours about terrorists and mobsters since before Gansey had even met Ronan. It was common decency not to pay them any notice.

‘No. It was… Oh, Christ, it was stupid, really. I shouldn’t have believed it. I wish I hadn’t.’

‘What did it say? What did you believe?’

‘I went to the church.’ He whispered softly. It felt like sacrilege to admit it. ‘I just wanted to see if there was any evidence…’

‘But they rebuilt the church.’ Blue frowned. ‘The town fixed it so they could place the memorial there.’

Gansey rubbed his eyes fretfully. ‘I know.’

‘So, what? Just… what?’

‘There was nothing there.’ He said finally. ‘And I mean, nothing. There was the church, and the memorial, and… well, the graves.’ He didn’t need to put into words how it felt to see the name Lynch on a headstone. ‘But there was nothing else. Long grass, trees, stonework. No sign of any explosion at all.’

Blue opened her mouth to protest, and nothing came out. She cleared her throat. ‘It was _years_ ago, Gansey-’

‘The church was untouched.’ He insisted. ‘I found pictures of it from before. There wasn’t a single stone out of place, or different windows, or new statues. No fire damage at all.’

‘But Ronan was _there_.’ Blue looked aghast. ‘He _found_ them.’

‘I don’t know.’ Gansey said painfully. ‘I don’t know what he found.’

 

 

 

Adam Parrish went home to change before work on Thursday afternoon.

He’d successfully avoided subjects relating to the Veil for three days, and had either successfully avoided Noah or been avoided by Noah, so that helped. It wasn’t as though he didn’t miss him… it was, frustratingly, the complete opposite. It was simply that Adam needed to concentrate on school. Not superheroes, not his chequered and questionable family history, and definitely not Ronan Lynch and Blue’s six-foot fire goddess cousin.

Just school. And work, which was where he was headed.

He pushed open the door and stepped inside, pulling his keys free.

It took a moment to register the open cupboards and overturned drawers, a second before the gun touched his cheekbone.

The figure next to him laid a hand on the door and firmly pushed it shut.

Adam could see the scant contents of his kitchen spread across the floor, and beyond the counter the sofa had been moved and the cushions stripped off. He thought anxiously of the scanner, but other than a goldmine of textbooks there was nothing valuable here.

‘Adam Parrish.’ The man said, in a flat, empty tone. ‘I presume?’

Adam looked across at him very slowly. ‘Who are you?’

The man next to him was tall, slim, and threateningly gaunt. The gun was silver. His breath caught in his throat.

‘I’m known, in some circles, as Geminae.’

Latin. Latin for… what? He couldn’t think of a taxonomy - a beetle, maybe? Or maybe a dinosaur? He remembered something else… Gansey’s research.

‘I thought you were an urban myth.’ Adam turned carefully, and the intruder let him, until they were face to face.

‘Perhaps you will find out.’ The barrel dropped to his chest, so Adam could look at Geminae directly.

He tried to think. _Geminae_. The twin man? What was the story? A bodyguard for influential people with no morals, was that it? Sightings suggested that he was something like a ghost, something like an assassin.

Why was he here? Why Adam? Was this a trick? Or a lie?

Adam glanced aside, towards the window, a reflex. A faint hope.

‘I require answers.’ Geminae continued, stepping forward so that he stood between Adam and the door, and pushed Adam into the centre of the room. ‘About your friend Widower.’

Adam shook his head automatically, and felt a nudge of pressure against his neck.

‘My… friend? I’m not… I don’t…’ This was about Ronan. Geminae was after _Ronan_.

‘He takes a great interest in your wellbeing.’ Geminae corrected coolly. ‘A _great_ interest. I have been watching the news.’

‘No, I… He told me to help.’ Adam wished he sounded more certain. He wished he _was_ more certain, but thinking was excessively difficult when there was a gun involved. ‘I didn’t…’

‘And at that charming service station?’ Geminae had the good grace not to sound smug. He just sounded cold, passionlessly blunt. ‘Perhaps you were witness to three murders of a while ago, along the route you take after work? It seems as though you must have crossed paths with him many times, after all.’

Adam tried to shake his head, again, and only managed to twitch anxiously.

He whispered; ‘I don’t know him.’

Geminae did not seem swayed.

‘Perhaps-’ He said, raising his free hand to grip Adam’s shoulder tightly. ‘Perhaps we will go for a walk.’

He tucked the gun into the pocket of his jacket, and pushed Adam ahead, out the door.

There wasn’t anyone else in the dingy hallway, but Adam didn’t think he would have tried anything even if there had been. He wasn’t sure anyone here would actually bother to help.

At the stairs, to Adam’s surprise, Geminae dug his fingers in and directed Adam to the left, upwards. He felt his heartbeat stutter, but he didn’t miss a single step, and he didn’t bother to ask what was next. Maybe the assassin expected Adam to call the Widower, somehow, or maybe he thought the vigilante had some kind of sixth sense for when Adam was in trouble… which, weirdly, made Adam feel a little better.

A few flights of stairs later, and Adam was pushing open the door to the roof.

The light hit him, bright despite the overcast sky. As it faded, he searched the rooftop for figures or shadows or _anything_ … and saw none.

It was empty. The sound of cars on the streets below, the distant fog of noise from the inner city, it all conveyed a general sense that life carried on as usual beyond the bounds of the rooftop.

Geminae pushed him straight forward, until they were a few feet from the edge, and then let go. He turned around, and the gun had reappeared.

‘Allow me to put this simply.’ Geminae’s unchanged voice added to the bitter chill of the breeze. ‘Either you provide the name of the Widower, or I throw you off this building.’

Despite the cold, Adam felt heat crawl up his spine and flood his cheeks. He glanced over his shoulder at the edge of the roof, and exhaled unsteadily.

He tried to shove down the dread coiling through his stomach, and forced out the words; ‘I don’t… know… his name.’

‘That is disappointing.’ Geminae didn’t look disappointed. In fact, his expression didn’t alter in the slightest. ‘Because I will find him, either way.’

He reached forward, catching a handful of Adam’s blazer and shirt. ‘You understand, I don’t doubt he will attempt to get revenge for your death, and I will achieve my goal. If you did know his name-’ He took a step, pushing Adam backwards. ‘-perhaps you wouldn’t have to die.’

There was sweat beading on Adam’s forehead. _Not falling_. He hated falling.

He felt his heels skitter on loose gravel, and his shin hit the low border around the rooftop. He grabbed Geminae’s wrist desperately, breath coming in short, choppy gasps.

He could tell. He _could_ tell.

But he couldn’t.

Because it was _Ronan_. And it was Ronan’s secret, and Ronan’s choice.

Adam felt himself lose traction on the surface of the roof, first one foot, then the other. Geminae was watching his face, focused but unmoved. His heel hooked against the border, and then scraped free, and dropped into empty air. Much to his own disgust, Adam whimpered.

His other foot caught the top of the wall, barely balancing.

He could tell.

 _Not Ronan_.

He didn’t want to die here. He didn’t want to die like this.

Geminae had paused. Adam was ashamed to find himself wretchedly praying that it had been a pretence, but the assassin was merely waiting, impassive and unperturbed by Adam’s scrabbling grip.

He closed his eyes, and hoped this wouldn’t hurt Noah.

‘I… don’t… know.’

Geminae let go. Involuntarily, Adam tried to reach back to catch himself, releasing his grip on Geminae’s arm.

He fell.

 

 

 

Blue Sargent was less than impressed with her mother’s reaction to justifiable complaints about Orla. First of all, she attracted too much attention. The kind where Blue was constantly worried some lovestruck twerp would be following her back to Foxway and blowing the whole operation for everyone. Aside from that, there were the perpetual phone calls (did the woman never _sleep_?), the diabolical mess, and the faintly charred smell that suddenly seemed to invade every conceivable corner of the building.

Maura Sargent was less than impressed with her daughter’s tone.

Something seemed very wrong, today. Something seemed very unpleasantly off about the world. It was giving Maura a headache, and on top of that Blue’s complaints were unappreciated.

Blue dropped a box of frozen spinach into their shopping cart, and said glacially; ‘I’m going to find some fresh vegetables.’ She strode away with grim determination.

Maura continued pushing the cart slowly in the opposite direction, rubbing her temple with one finger.

Orla was the closest thing Blue had ever had to a sister, and Maura was moderately confident, given her youthful experience with Jimi, that their squabbling would eventually subside. Unfortunately, Orla’s brief absence seemed only to have exacerbated the tension.

Richard Gansey’s quest, on the other hand, seemed to have stalled. The monstrous Chimera had vanished, much to Maura’s hesitant relief. She wasn’t entirely sure what his actual intention was anymore. To defeat Chimera? To liberate that poor lost Czerny boy?

And when Gansey moved on… If Gansey could move on… maybe Blue would too. Maybe her existence after graduation would be adventures in college life, rather than adventures in mortal combat.

Maura was proud, awfully proud of her, but there was only so much liberality in parenting she could manage.

Maura turned the corner into the cereal aisle. It was a stretch of empty space - they were shopping on a Thursday afternoon after school hours, so she found that mildly odd - but within a few seconds someone rounded the far end and started down the squeaky white floor towards her.

Her head throbbed, and she absorbed the warning. Blue was nearby. Maura turned the cart around to go back, and found, with displeasure, another figure blocking her path.

A glance prompted a surge of uneasiness, and she checked over her shoulder. One man, behind her, one in front…

But… she shivered automatically.

The same face, repeated twice. The same man. The same outfit. The same facial expression.

This was wrong. This was precisely as wrong as it seemed.

The man in front of her raised a gun. Maura stepped back from the cart.

She expected Blue to appear. She expected a zap of that incredible blue energy, and for this creep to go flying.

She was not scared. She was ready.

There was a click from the gun, echoed instantly behind her. Two guns. No problem for Blue.

Several aisles away - somewhere down near fresh foods - there was a gunshot, and Maura blinked in disbelief.

The man in front of her must have pulled the trigger. She saw the gun flick up, but she didn’t hear it.

For a sliver of a second, everything was black, and then Maura Sargent found herself standing in the reception room of the ground floor at Foxway. The psychic who had been sitting at the desk was sitting, and then suddenly she was on her feet, and the phone clattered to the desk.

Maura was peculiarly, unpleasantly aware of her tongue, and then Blue Sargent appeared several feet away, the arms of a tall stranger curved protectively around her head.

Blue reacted before Maura could get her mouth to work, and flung an arm sideways. The couch behind her flipped backwards and slammed into the wall, but the stranger had vanished.

He reappeared, unruffled, in front of the reception desk. Maura registered the neat gray suit, gray hair, and gray eyes, and the elegant, handsome face, distinctly dissimilar to the threatening figures in the grocery shop. Blue threw out her other hand, and the psychic behind the desk shrieked and leapt onto it as it slid backwards.

‘Blue!’ Maura was finally able to summon the word. ‘ _Blue!_ ’

Her daughter paused, both arms extended, face flushed and glowing with fury, and looked at her.

‘Wait.’ She raised her hands soothingly. ‘I don’t believe he’s a threat.’

There was silence. Blue’s scowl didn’t budge, but she gradually lowered her arms. A figure suddenly rematerialised, politely seated in the far armchair.

He said, gently; ‘I’m sorry to intrude.’

‘What the hell was that!?’ Blue turned on him, hands curling into fists.

‘I apologise for the abruptness of my intervention.’ He responded. ‘You seem to have encountered an old adversary of mine, and I wanted to offer my assistance. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be time.’

Still glaring, Blue took a deep, solemn breath.

Maura said calmly; ‘Maybe we should call Richard.’

 

 

 

Richard Gansey the Third was driving to Cheng’s apartment. Ronan Lynch was slumped in his passenger seat, watching him drive.

Ronan thought Gansey looked stressed. More stressed than usual. More tired, too. He informed Gansey of these observations.

‘Thanks, Lynch.’ They pulled up at a red light. Gansey tapped his lower lip and hummed.

Ronan smirked, and goaded him languidly. ‘Experiencing some anxiety? Low blood sugar? What’s on your mind?’

Ronan’s mood had been considerably improved by his awareness that Gansey was finding nothing in his dig through Viridiveste. Admittedly, he was begrudgingly reliant on Cheng’s facilitation for this result, but he still viewed it as a satisfying outcome.

There was no sign of Chimera, either. Maybe his little surge of activity had weakened him, and he’d slink off for another stretch in hiding.

‘Shove it.’ Gansey replied agreeably.

The light flickered over to green. Gansey pulled across the intersection.

Ronan felt minuscule needles stabbing up the length of his spine, and flicked his gaze sideways in time to see the huge, chrome bull bar of a black SUV a moment before it slammed into the Pig.

He swore. Gansey shouted something, unintelligible over the sound of glass shattering and metal crumpling. The passenger door folded in, crushing Ronan into the gear stick and the handbrake, and he tossed an arm against Gansey’s chest and neck, pinning him to the seat.

The car came to rest on the opposite sidewalk, the back end lodged against a fire hydrant. Ronan groaned, and Gansey’s hands grasped his arm frantically.

‘Ronan? Christ, _Ronan_?’

‘M’fine.’ There was something digging into his stomach, and his forehead was bleeding, but nothing too serious. If he could get himself free, the worst of it could be healed before the ambulances arrived.

Getting free was apparently the hard part.

He straightened as much as he could, and examined Gansey. There were specks of blood dripping down the side of his face from his eyebrow, but he was wide-eyed and breathing, which Ronan found promising.

‘You okay?’

‘Jesus Ronan, jesus, what the hell-’

The sound of a car door slamming caught Ronan’s attention. He twisted, and saw the driver of the other vehicle walking towards them, from where it had come to a halt a hundred metres down the road. Nothing about this felt good. He tried to reach for Gansey again, hearing him mumble; ‘What the _hell_ -’

Initially Ronan thought Gansey was repeating himself, but when he looked back, the driver had morphed into three people. Ronan shook his head, but the concussion didn’t clear. There were still three of him, striding closer, and drawing identical weapons with mirrored movements.

‘ _Fuck_.’ He grabbed Gansey’s shirt and yanked him forward, before slinging an arm over the back of his head. ‘Stay down!’

There was a bang, and a ping as something struck the bonnet. The windscreen had already broken, but it hadn’t collapsed entirely, and it took several more bullets striking the glass before it folded itself in on top of them.

Ronan elbowed the door, hard, trying to push it back out so he could move. ‘Shit. Fuck. Shit.’ A bullet hissed through the gap made by the loss of glass, and Ronan felt a starburst of pain erupt in his shoulder. ‘Mother- ah! _fucker_!’

‘Ronan!’ Gansey tried to lift his head, and Ronan shoved him back down. Something whizzed past him and sank into a leather headrest with a small explosion of fluff.

‘Stay! Down!’

Ronan struck harder, and the door snapped open and swung brokenly away from him. He slipped out backwards, landed on his spine, and cursed.

‘Gansey, jesus fuck, Gansey, start the car, get the hell out of there-’

‘Ronan-‘

‘ _Go_!’

Ronan staggered to his feet. There was warmth blossoming through his left shoulder, dripping down his collarbone. He grunted, and heard another bullet strike the car door.

The Pig grumbled and spluttered but didn’t turn over. Ronan silently cursed Gansey’s life choices, and dug in his pocket for his webshooters. There were still three of the same man, one now firing directly through the windscreen, one gradually approaching the driver’s door, and one appearing suddenly in Ronan’s periphery and taking a swing at him.

Ronan silently prayed that Gansey was still ducking, deflected the punch and broke his opponent’s nose with an elbow. He grabbed the man by his dark, closely groomed hair and hauled him forwards, slammed a knee into his stomach, grabbed his belt and threw him bodily into the centre of the street.

Another bullet pinged off the frame of the Pig. Ronan growled, and turned his focus on the other doppelgängers. He had to use a web to rip the gun out of the hands of the closer figure, and whipped his head forward into the bonnet.

Gansey tried to start the Pig again. Ronan catapulted himself over the broken door and kicked the second doppelgänger in the chest, narrowly dodging a bullet from the third. He swore, again, violently. This was it. This was the final straw. It was Gansey or him, and Ronan knew that wasn’t a question at all. If Gansey looked up - potentially at the instant he got the Pig to start - Ronan was fucked.

He was wrestling the second doppelgänger to the ground when something hit his injured shoulder and knocked him onto his knees. The third had abandoned the hunt for Gansey in order to throw a punch at Ronan. It hurt, fucking hell, it hurt, but Ronan kicked back, taking out a knee. He rolled onto his back, webbed the third attacker in the face, and dragged him far enough forward to kick him in the gut with both feet.

He managed to get up, shoulder stinging and sending sharp, jagged knives of pain all the way through his chest and arm.

The Pig turned over.

Ronan looked up, and found Gansey staring at him, eyes massive in his pale, shaken face.

Ronan didn’t know how much he’d seen. He was bleeding badly, from the shoulder, and a few fresh cuts on his face. He must have looked like hell, but Gansey had seen worse.

His expression of horror suggested otherwise.

There was a brutal screech as Gansey tried to reverse into the fire hydrant. He must have thrown the car into first gear, because a moment later it skidded past Ronan’s and onto the main road. Ronan tilted, and caught himself.

Gansey was still staring at him, shocked.

It was over.

Gansey knew.

The Pig peeled away down the road, accompanied by the sound of metal screeching against bitumen, and leaving Ronan, shattered, on his knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whisky and feelings are bad kids make good life choices I believe in you.


	24. Wow. Just, wow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I should trigger tag this or not, but it gets kind of... dark? Sorry about that. Skip if you are fragile, we can all fill you in after and it's not that big a deal. Be careful, lovelies.

He couldn’t catch his breath. Couldn’t get any air into his lungs. It seemed unbelievable, given that he was surrounded by nothing but air.

The noise of it was incredible, rushing past his ears and whipping his clothes around. He knew he didn’t have long - three, maybe four seconds from the roof to the pavement. It felt like longer… It felt like he was trapped in a vacuum, no air, no motion, and deafening white noise.

But he was _falling_. He could imagine his spine splintering on the sidewalk. He could summarise everything he’d done over the past eighteen years as a pathetic waste of energy.

The roof was so far away. Adam squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself.

He hit something, so hard he felt the bones in his side crush in, but not hard enough to kill him. It threw him sideways, instead, and he felt an arm fasten around his aching ribs.

_Ronan?_

He was still in the air, still off the ground, eyes pressed closed and his lungs beginning to burn. Lynch was holding him so tight it hurt, and Adam was clutching Ronan with every shred of strength he had.

There was a moment of weightlessness, and then they dropped to the ground, Ronan holding him upright as his legs gave up.

Adam tried to take a breath, shallow and shaking, digging his fingers in the back of Ronan’s shirt. He couldn’t open his eyes, or get himself to stand. He just kept expecting the impact, waiting to land, waiting to end.

Ronan’s other hand ghosted over the back of his neck.

‘ _Parrish_.’ Ronan’s snarl was a warning. Adam forced his arms to slacken and Ronan lowered him to the ground. With one hand he wrapped Adam’s arm around something - a pillar or post - and then he must have gone.

 

 

 

He didn’t know how long he sat there. After a while, he stopped feeling so sick. He found himself noticing the cramped rooftop, belonging to a building other than his, cluttered with scaffolding, abandoned air-conditioning units, blue garbage bags, broken furniture and dead pot plants. The breeze ruffling his hair, and the angle of the sun.

He managed to take a few deeper, unsteady breaths, but he couldn’t stop his hands from trembling, and he couldn’t relinquish his grip on the metal railing next to him, circling the base of an aged water tank. He didn’t think, and he didn’t want to.

He was staring out at the skyline when Ronan landed behind him. There was the crunch of his shoes, and a soft scrape of metal, followed by the persistent cacophony of Ronan losing his temper.

Adam heard him smashing through the wooden frame of the scaffold, denting the metal air vents, and destroying various items of furniture.

The noise hardly registered. Neither did the meaning.

The sun had sunk even lower, glancing off the windows of the buildings nearby and turning them glistening yellow, by the time Ronan stopped breaking things. Adam hadn’t moved, but he’d dropped his head back against the railing. He felt overwhelmingly tired, but unable to close his eyes.

Some of the buildings he could see were recognisable. A brownstone on Stuart Street and the corner of the trashed video rental down on Cuthbert, which meant Adam’s building was somewhere to his right, concealed behind junk.

He didn’t bother looking. 

Ronan’s footsteps unwillingly drew closer, and he abruptly threw himself down across from Adam. He stretched out his legs, close enough to brush against Adam’s own, and slouched back on one arm.

There was anger rolling off him in waves, silent and smothering, too much for Adam to fathom. Somehow it was still easier to think, with his presence. Easier to breathe.

Adam looked from the horizon to Ronan, and Ronan looked away.

There was blood on his face, on his hands, and streaked down his arm. Adam wondered if Geminae was dead.

He hoped so.

He wondered how the assassin had expected to fight the Widower. He wondered how Ronan had known he was falling. He wondered how close to the ground he’d been.

 

 

 

Ronan could feel himself falling to pieces, splitting apart inside and crumbling.

Without Gansey he had nothing… nothing to stop him. Nothing to come back to. Nothing to stay sane for.

Not even Adam Parrish, pale and shaking, and thank fuck, thank _Christ_ , still alive. Without Gansey, everything slipped away. No Monmouth or Blue or Cheng or weird Parrish siblings. No frustrating psychics and quaintly moralistic arguments.

Just a few superhuman skills and the sick need for revenge.

Adam shifted, finally, pulling his arm free from the railing. He looked like he might be already halfway dead. Ronan didn’t know how many traumatic shocks a person could endure before they stopped functioning altogether, but Parrish must have been on the verge of that by now. His hands were red… He blinked at them vaguely before looking up.

‘Are you hurt?’

Ronan didn’t answer. Maybe he was, but he couldn’t name the pain.

Adam leaned forward, wincing at the movement, and pulled aside the neck of Ronan’s shirt.

‘He shot you.’ This was delivered with fragile incredulity. Ronan shook his head.

‘No. Yes. Sort of.’

He’d recognised the figure as soon as he’d landed on the roof. He’d even recognised the gun.

Parrish frowned and crawled over. Ronan could still feel the tremor in his fingertips. Adam was scared of falling, and someone had pushed him off a roof. There had already been raw fear making Ronan blindly furious, from losing Gansey, from almost losing Parrish. Finding out it was a duplicate asshole had just painted a bigger target on his stupid, narrow, arrogant face.

‘This is closing up.’ Parrish observed pensively. ‘Did you take the bullet out?’

Ronan ignored the question. He didn’t know how long it would take for Adam to find out, not that he was the Widower, but that he was the Widower to _Gansey_ , now… a different thing. He didn’t know how long he could continue to sit still without trying to kill something.

‘There’s not enough light.’ Parrish added. ‘I can’t get-’

He started to stand, got upright, and promptly crumpled with a small murmur of doubt. ‘Oh.’ He returned to his railing with a look of distress. Ronan felt the shaking intensify along Parrish’s closest leg, and grasped his ankle.

‘What’s your problem with heights, anyway?’ He asked harshly, drawing Adam’s nervous attention back off the skyline. ‘There are worse things to be pissing yourself about around here.’

Adam watched him closely, but he answered.

‘Used to live out in government housing, towards Sandplains. There was a tree in the backyard, and I thought I’d climb it. And I fell.’ He took a breath, glanced away. ‘Broke my leg in two places.’

Ronan said nothing, coolly neutral.

‘The tree wasn’t far from the house, exactly.’ Remembrance ebbed into a tighter, controlled tone. ‘Dad should have been able to hear me.’

‘How long?’ Ronan sensed the open wound, struck automatically, cruelly.

‘It was-’ Adam caught himself, almost saying more. ‘- overnight. The neighbour found me in the morning.’

‘I don’t remember the pain, exactly, just the… fear… of the pain. I guess that’s why I… it… I guess that’s it.’ He shrugged, simply.

‘What a prick.’ Ronan remarked.

‘I was seven.’ Parrish protested faintly, and Ronan kicked his leg.

‘Not you, shithead.’

Parrish looked away, oddly calmer from the induced emotional restraint. He looked back. ‘What happened?’

Everything cut him. It was worse than glass. It was worse than physical pain. ‘Ronan?’

‘Gansey knows.’ Ronan couldn’t breathe. ‘Fuckface wrecked the Pig. Gansey-’ He ran out of air, and tugged off his webshooters, tossing them to the ground with mute savagery.

He could see Parrish starting to think, turning it over, like a puzzle. _What would Gansey think? What would Gansey do?_

‘Maybe he’ll understand.’

‘He won’t.’ Ronan spat the words.

‘It’s Gansey.’ Adam said, suddenly firm. ‘He’ll try.’

 _Was that true?_ Of course it was. _Was it possible?_

‘Do you have a reason?’ Parrish asked, and Ronan stared at him.

 

 

 

Gansey knew. And Parrish knew. Between the two of them it was bound to be discovered, reasoned out, anyway.

And it was Adam, asking. Analysing. Puzzling.

_Do you have a reason?_

Thirty-one reasons. No. Just two.

He didn’t know anymore.

His hand was still on Parrish’s leg, ankle prominent even through his school slacks. Adam was steady, given something to focus on, a problem to solve.

‘My father was the Widower.’ It was like carving himself open to finally say it aloud. Adam didn’t blink.

‘An experiment.’ He was risking everything. He was admitting what he’d sworn to bury. But it was _Adam._ ‘A mistake. He was a biochemist.’

The memory of Niall Lynch was an electric shock to his system. Like being reminded of what life meant, while having it snatched away, over and over again.

‘My mother was a geneticist. They… engineered the spiders-’ It was repeating the fairytale he’d been raised on. It was his entire childhood. ‘-with rewritten DNA.’

Ronan dropped onto his back, feeling a little spasm of pain from his shoulder but little else. He couldn’t look at Adam. ’He told us stories about the people he fought as the Widower. All the people he put away.’

And every time he recited his adventures to the Lynch brothers, Niall would wink, and repeat the same words. _The next one was worse_. “The next one was worse” until it was an inside joke. Until they’d stopped believing in the next one, because they’d heard all of his stories, the little details of every villain and every fight, a thousand times over.

‘He said the worst one he ever fought was the Demon.’

Ronan had loved the story, at the time. Because Niall told it. Because he thought it was a fantasy. Not a thing that crawled out from under your bed in the middle of the night and tore you apart.

The first time he’d heard it he had been fourteen. Declan had been fifteen (going on thirty), and Matthew had been a bubbly, vacant eleven.

‘Said- Said that the Demon corrupted the soul and took the body, and he’d fought it many times and never won. He said there was no way to stop it. All you could do was keep fighting.’

‘When holidays came, Matthew had a school camp, and Declan went to chaperone. He always did. He thought Matthew couldn’t be trusted by himself.’

‘We went to town for Mass… Our Lady of Innocence… You must know-’ He choked into silence.

Parrish spoke, finally; ‘Caedes.’

The name made Ronan shudder. ‘It wasn’t an explosion.’

‘You were there?’ Adam’s control thawed just enough to let horror slip out.

Ronan’s grip on Adam’s ankle tightened convulsively. ‘I didn’t go in. Matthew and Declan got to skip, so I wanted to go to the river.’

Every memory of that day was as distinct as if he was living it, but washed out with grief and self-loathing. He’d fashioned makeshift boats out of leaves and twigs and waded along the river’s edge, thoughtless, useless.

He’d returned to the church when it was past time for Mass to be finished. He’d expected his parents to track him down, then he’d expected them to be caught in conversation with the other churchgoers. But the carpark had been full of cars, patiently waiting, and the church door had been closed. The building had been silent. Horribly silent. The kind of silent where the trees didn’t move, and there were no animals nearby, and he felt like breathing was breaking some kind of rule.

It wasn’t as though he didn’t like Mass, or that he made it a mission to avoid it. It was just a day off he felt he was owed, by Matthew and Declan getting to go off and fuck around in the woods with tents and canoes.

He’d pulled open the door, determined to creep inside and see what was happening.

Niall was the first thing he’d seen, after his eyes adjusted. Niall was the one closest to him. In the aisle, caught mid-movement. Ronan had lived it and lived it. Niall must have been going for the Demon. He must have been. It was the only reason he would have left Aurora behind in the pew.

So his father’s face was the first thing he found, at his feet. Neck bent, he’d twisted his head as he fell forwards. And the blood in twin streaks down his cheeks from his eyes, over his lips from his nostrils, and from the corners of his mouth. Except it wasn’t blood. Or maybe it had been, but it wasn’t anymore. It was like the blood had rotted and turned to poison and forced itself free of his body, oozing down mottled and cadaverous skin.

His eyes had been open.

Ronan had thought, because of this, that he might still be alive. He’d crouched over his father, immediately calling for help from any one of the other thirty people in the church, and he’d found those open eyes as empty and black as marbles.

He didn’t know how long it had taken him to stand up again, but he’d left Niall.

He’d found twenty-nine others, equally dead, equally poisoned.

And he’d finally found his mother, curled up at the foot of her pew (Niall must have told her to hide).

The horror of seeing his father dead was like having his courage and his faith shredded in one, brutal motion. The horror of finding his mother dead was like having his heart burned out of him atom by atom.

Ronan’s face was damp. His words were strangled out of him. ‘It wasn’t an explosion.’

They’d covered it up, of course. They’d all covered it up. Put up walls and surrounded the whole building so nobody could see inside. Lies upon lies upon lies.

‘It was the Demon?’ Adam’s voice tested the name, distastefully. ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

A person. Or a weapon. Or a deity.

‘You went after it.’ This was a clinical assessment. Parrish didn’t judge.

‘I know it came from here.’ Ronan growled. ‘I need to find it.’

‘What makes you think you can stop it?’

‘Nothing.’ That was the truth. Ronan probably wouldn’t stand a chance. ‘But I’ve got nothing to lose.’

Gansey had been the last thing. Declan had already cut himself off, and taken Matthew and _home_ with him. Gansey was the only thing left.

 

 

 

‘So you were… searching?’

Ronan realised he could probably break Adam’s ankle, if he tried. As easily as touching him. He hated the thought. He wanted to pull his hand away, almost as much as he didn’t. He wanted Adam Parrish to be free, almost as much as he didn’t.

‘At first.’ He’d moved in with Gansey, a few weeks after school started that year. They’d both been searching. And if Gansey couldn’t find anything to help Ronan, there wasn’t much chance he’d be able to find anything himself.

‘Ronan.’ Adam’s tone was hard, steeling them both for the inevitable question. ‘Why the killing?’

Ronan sat up, sharply enough to make Adam flinch. ‘Why the- Why _not,_ Parrish? Should I be trying to rehabilitate all the murderers and sadists and Kavinskys in the fucking universe?’

Adam just looked at him. ‘Is that your reason?’

Ronan glared, rage simmering alarmingly close to the surface, and yet starkly aware that he would never hurt Adam. ‘Because _I can’t sleep_ , Parrish.’

He exhaled unsteadily. ‘It’s been nearly two years, and _I can’t sleep_. I’ve got _nothing_. I found _nothing_.’

‘I found murderers and assassins and every other kind of bastard you can think of, and I was just supposed to leave them alive? Let them hurt whoever they wanted? Let them hurt Gansey, or Matthew, or that goddamn _idiot_ from the gas station?’

Parrish would know what he meant. Parrish would know Ronan meant _him_.

‘Because I _know_ what it felt like, for them-’ Ronan wiped his eyes aggressively. ‘- how it felt as they died, drowning in their own blood. D’you really think I could live with that, doing _nothing_ , when I should have been there?’

Adam asked, flatly; ’You think their deaths are more important than other people’s lives? Than your life?’

It was an abstract question, not an indictment, but Ronan bared his teeth anyway.

‘ _Yes_.’

‘More important than mine?’

The question took Ronan by surprise, stole some of his rage. He stared. Then he blinked. Then he stared some more. Adam’s face was carefully blank.

He felt like he’d inadvertently found himself in a rare, humiliating dream. He also wished he’d remembered Adam was one of Aglionby’s best debating team members.

He opened his mouth, felt his insides dissolve into nameless emotion. ‘No.’

Adam picked up one of Ronan’s discarded webshooters, and toyed aimlessly with it while he considered the answer. The expression on his face didn’t change, but he didn’t make eye contact.

Ronan had given too much away. Parrish wasn’t a fool, even if he sometimes seemed to be.

Ronan was losing everything.

‘Why not?’

Ronan very carefully took his hand off Adam’s leg and placed it on the ground. ‘Because I want you to live.’

The lack of fear in his own voice startled him. The lack of uncertainty was almost a relief.

Something struck Ronan’s hand with significant force, and it took him a moment to dispel his preoccupation before he understood what it was. ‘Jesus, Parrish, what the fuck-’

A web, cool but obnoxiously sticky, had enveloped his hand. Before Ronan could reach over and try to free himself, another web hit his other hand, and firmly pinned it in place. ‘ _Parrish_!’

Adam stood up, and Ronan lifted his head to glare. His exasperation slowly morphed into something else. Parrish’s expression was unrecognisably strange. Even as Ronan tried to pull his legs up and wrench his hands loose, more webs caught one foot, a knee, and part of his thigh.

‘Adam?’ Ronan felt fear unfurling in his throat.

Adam laid the webshooter back on the ground. Ronan started to squirm, cursing the effectiveness of his own creation. He knew that expression. He’d seen that expression a hundred times.

‘Parrish.’ Adam wasn’t responding. He’d already turned away, navigating towards the edge of the rooftop. ‘Parrish, don’t even-’

He was gone, vanished around a pile of trash. Ronan continued to thrash violently, hesitating only when he heard the unmistakeable creak of the fire escape, and then renewing his struggle.


	25. Noooooo! Not Flesh-Eating Morlocks!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about belated replies again, I'm just pushing the writing into cracks of time around work and (pretending to) sleep. I am so grateful for all your kindness though, you lovely patient people.

He wasn’t sure how long the webs would be able to hold Ronan down.

The anxiety about having to take another rickety fire escape to the road had the fortunate effect of increasing his speed, but more than once he had to hesitate and steady his breathing.

He could still picture Ronan’s face, flushed with yellow gold light from the sinking sun. He’d almost been too reluctant to ask the question. Even though everything was suggesting one logical conclusion, the conclusion itself seemed too improbable.

But Ronan had answered. _Because I want you to live_. And that meant… _something_. Because Ronan wasn’t Gansey. The value of life was something different to him. It wasn’t self-justifying. Life wasn’t important, unless Ronan had a reason to think it was.

Adam didn’t pause for breath when he reached the ground, but he pulled his hood up, thinking absently of Henry’s watchful cameras.

Chimera hadn’t even been strong enough to shake off those webs, which was the only reason Adam had risked it, but he knew he still had to be cautious. Ronan never seemed to run out of surprises, and he at least had a fully-functional frontal lobe.

Adam tracked along the back alley and into the street.

Surely Caedes would have been bad enough on its own. Subtract a sudden, explosive death, and substitute murder by some unknown entity, and the scenario was equally horrible. Add to that Ronan’s obvious survivor guilt, the inconceivable horror of him having to _find_ them, and his capacity to keep fighting and surviving with inhuman levels of sleep deprivation…

And that he must have loved them. And they must have loved him.

Under other circumstances, Adam might not have been able to even partially grasp exactly what that could feel like, but now there was Noah. And Ronan, the unlikely, incredible bastard, had just reminded him.

He skittered across the road and down another lane. _It’s cowardice to avoid unpleasant things_.

A small rustbucket Ford careened past him on Cuthbert street, but Adam reached the other sidewalk unscathed. He had his keys in his jacket pocket, although he was sure Geminae wouldn’t have locked the apartment behind them. There were coins, too, just enough for a cheap subway ticket.

It was still close-of-shift time. The stairs and the platform were crowded, and Adam had no trouble winding his way through people to reach one of the stained, graffiti covered concrete walls at the edge.

A few people mumbled noises (mostly dissent, a little bit of judgement) when he hurdled the barrier and scrambled down the steps, but there were no obvious sounds of immediate pursuit as he disappeared into the tunnel.

He dislodged an occasional pebble, but mostly the floor was just smooth concrete. The sounds of people jostling for better position and arguing on the platform followed him a long way. If someone had reported his jump, there didn’t seem to be any rush in retrieving him.

Adam summoned the remnants of his courage and ploughed on as the tunnel got darker.

There wasn’t any vibration underfoot, and there were broad, roughly person-sized alcoves a few feet off the ground along both walls, if he needed to quickly evacuate the track.

He concentrated on Noah.

It seemed likely that Noah would hear him without having to audibly call out, which was something, at least, to be grateful for. He kept walking, one hand hovering along the wall but not quite touching it, stumbling randomly over discarded debris from others who had risked the same path. _I know you’re down here. Give me a direction_.

He was missing work, again.

This wasn’t how he’d hoped his afternoon would go. _Where are you? Noah?_

‘Adam.’

He jumped, and turned around.

‘You shouldn’t be here.’ Noah’s voice was thick, and childish. Adam tried to remind himself that Noah was - had been - an adult. He continued miserably; ‘Please go away.’

Adam kept edging backwards, watching his brother’s odd, shapeless outline. ‘I know he’s here.’

‘Go back.’ Noah blinked towards him, and Adam stepped back. ‘I want you to go back.’

‘I want you to _come_ back.’ Adam countered firmly. ‘And I want him gone.’

Baz had taken Noah from his family, had threatened him, and now the son of a bitch was keeping him from home, from _Adam_.

If he could emulate Ronan’s fierceness for just a moment, just this moment, he thought he might be able to win.

‘I’ll help you finish this.’ How long had Adam known Chimera was down here? He’d suspected, obviously, since the train incident. But things had fallen into place after he’d had time to think about Noah. How often had Noah been gone before Chimera had appeared? How little had he been at the apartment?

Adam couldn’t have said anything. Blue had passed out fighting Chimera, and despite his defiance, Ronan could have _died_. Even with Henry’s help there wasn’t actually a strategy to take Chimera down, or out, or whatever they wanted to do with him.

Adam just wanted him gone.

‘Please don’t, Adam.’ Noah pleaded. ‘Please don’t go near him.’

‘I’ll help.’ Adam repeated. He was stumbling back into darkness. He could feel something behind him, making him want to turn.

‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’ Noah was crying. A light appeared in Adam’s periphery, signalling a deeper niche with a door. Noah didn’t react to it. Adam kept moving.

‘Am I strong enough?’ Adam asked softly. The ground trembled.

‘ _Adam_ -’

‘Can I do it for you?’

There was a sob, a damp little intake of breath. ‘I don’t want to die.’

‘You won’t.’ Adam folded his hands into fists. ‘You’ve got me. You don’t need him anymore.’

 

 

 

Gansey was sitting on Blue’s bed, his head in his hands. Blue paced restlessly next to the bed.

He felt the desperate need to offer some comfort or reassurance, but he had no idea what to say. He’d staggered in from Henry’s garage, leaving his poor, damaged Pig in the middle of the floor, and found Blue in a burst of chaotic distress not unlike his own. 

There was a stranger there, in the upstairs living room, but Gansey hadn’t needed long to recognise him. The gray suit, the gray hair, the impassive, gray demeanour. The Gray Man, in fact, perfectly lived up to his reputation and every witness description of him.

Blue had grabbed Gansey’s face and administered every worldly attention to his forehead with a significant degree of indignation, while Maura had explained that the Gray Man had intercepted the machinations of Geminae.

 _Geminae_. One of the more shadowy figures Gansey had traced through his research. Even the Gray Man, allegedly able to actually teleport himself, had accumulated more of a track record than _Geminae_ had.

But it made sense, why the figures Gansey had glimpsed from the car had looked so unusually similar, and how Blue and Maura could have encountered even more of the same man at the same time.

Gansey had heard their story, shuddering on the sofa, and when Blue had demanded an explanation of what had happened to him, he’d only managed a hollow mumble; ‘Ronan. _Ronan_.’

He’d left him behind.

Oh, God, he’d left Ronan behind.

This was a nightmare.

‘Lynch?’ The Gray Man had said thoughtfully. He’d raised a hand to cut through the disorder. ‘Did he make it?’

Gansey couldn’t answer. He remembered the sound of Ronan cursing, and the horrible awareness that the bullet had struck him.

Blue said, definitively; ‘Of course he did.’ Behind her determination Gansey could hear pain. ‘Ronan’s unkillable.’

Maura had reached for Blue’s hand, the one that wasn’t already squeezing Gansey’s.

‘I thought that about his father, once.’ The Gray Man had sighed. ‘But I suppose it did take more than Laumonier to kill him.’

It was too much. It was all too much.

Niall Lynch was the original Widower.

Ronan was…

On the very edge of Blue’s mattress, Gansey fumbled his phone in one hand, as she levelled an impatient glare at the window. There was no word from Henry, even though Gansey had called him fourteen times, and Blue had called him six.

Gansey wanted to call Ronan. Maybe he’d pick up. Maybe he’d give some reasonable explanation for being able to fight off three men at once and fire webs from his hands. Maybe he’d laugh it off, or shrug it off, the way Ronan did, the way Gansey wished he could.

He wanted Ronan to be here. Safe. In Foxway. Forget the Widower. Forget everything. Get Henry and the Parrishes, too. Get out of here. Get away from this.

The Gray Man - who had quietly admitted his name was “Dean” - had advised that Geminae, a.k.a. Laumonier, worked for VVC as a “cleaner.”

Even if Gansey hadn’t already known as much, he would have understood the meaning of the word “cleaner” from the way the Gray Man said it. Grimly, sharply, like a knife on glass.

The whole mountain’s worth of questions had avalanched down on Gansey. _What was Niall Lynch? Had VVC experimented on him? Or was it merely biological, like Blue’s powers, and Ronan had inherited it? And Ronan had known, and had never told him? Was that why had Niall Lynch died? Because he was the Widower? Was that why it had been covered up by VVC?_

_What did that mean - it took more than Laumonier to kill him? Could it mean that Viridiveste had been involved in the deaths of the Lynches?_

He couldn’t ask any of them, because any of them could have dragged out the worst one, the question he didn’t want answered.

_Was Ronan really a murderer?_

A door slammed somewhere in the building, and someone, possibly Calla, called for Blue.

It was Henry, thank God. They met him stomping along the hallway on the floor below, clad head to toe in full Ironbee armour. He took his helmet off in two pieces and tossed them aside as they made it into the meeting room.

‘I see I’m not the only one having an eventful afternoon.’ He said ruefully.

He stripped off the rest of the suit bit by bit. ‘Stroke of genius putting thermal insulators in this thing.’ He had apparently been startled into the suit while wearing only boxers and a faded t-shirt. Gansey wondered, through sheer distraction, exactly what he’d been _doing_.

‘Any word from Lynch and Parrish?’

There was that horrible knotted, crushing feeling in Gansey’s stomach, twisting at the sound of Ronan’s name.

‘Ronan was with Gansey.’ Blue explained. ‘He… took out the threat.’

Henry’s delicate, dark streaks of eyebrow climbed his forehead. ‘Really?’

‘And some asshole interrupted my mother’s shopping.’ She scowled. Getting a chance to confront Geminae seemed like a good avenue of managing her displeasure.

‘Well.’ Henry summarised succinctly, pushing into his office.

He added; ‘I didn’t realise. The sensor near Parrish’s place went off, though, after I got home from school. Looked like someone broke in. I thought I’d go and escort him off the bus when I was so rudely interrupted.’ He dropped, resolutely, into his chair.

Gansey felt chilled. ‘Adam’s in trouble?’

How long would it take him to get home? Longer than it would have taken Henry. Longer than it took Ronan and Gansey, definitely. But not so long that he wouldn’t have gotten there while Gansey was still falling over himself trying to find Blue and tell her about Ronan.

Henry made an typically expressive-but-not-actually-helpful face. ‘I don’t… think so.’

‘Why not?’

‘I thought Lynch was headed there.’ He shrugged circumspectly, accessing the security feed network he’d built.

Gansey sank into a nearby chair. Henry was trying not to overstate the situation, which could be because he knew something had happened to Adam… or because he didn’t know how much Gansey knew about Ronan.

Ronan was…

Oh, that made too much- No, that made no sense. Ronan was the Widower, and the Widower protected Adam. Jesus Christ, what a mess. How hadn’t he _known_?

 _Ronan_ protected Adam. Gansey had to adjust every memory, every conversation, to factor in his new knowledge. He remembered the bruise Adam had the week after he’d been attacked. He remembered Ronan’s strict avoidance when Adam had visited Monmouth. He remembered _Void_.

He remembered Ronan following Adam out after Noah had explained things to them, and remembered thinking that it was so like Ronan, to provide comfort in silent solidarity.

Did Adam know?

Blue had pulled a chair up to a separate monitor and was scanning through other cameras. ’Did Ronan get there?’

‘There’s no sign of him.’ Henry admitted. ‘I can see him heading towards the building, but he… well. He hasn’t set off any of my sensors.’

Gansey realised he was trying to tactfully point out that Ronan didn’t exactly use the front door.

‘Oh, God.’ Blue pulled back from her computer. ‘Laumonier.’

The video from one of Henry’s cameras, set up to closely monitor the entry of Adam’s building, was frozen on a picture of a single, but recognisable man. ‘This is about half an hour before Adam goes in.’ She forwarded the footage to an image of Adam, distinct in his school uniform and clearly unaware that he was walking into a trap.

Gansey felt even more of his world falling in. Laumonier worked for Viridiveste, and he had clearly targeted the Veil. Gansey had dragged Adam in, made him a part of this, and forced them all to dig into VVC’s secrets… and now someone was determined to silence them.

‘How would anyone know about Adam?’ Blue asked quietly. ‘You, me, Gansey, even Lynch… sure, but Adam’s only been here twice. Why him?’

‘He’s an easy target.’ Henry shrugged regretfully. ‘Shall I go and see if everything’s okay? I expect Lynch has managed the situation…’ He trailed off indeterminately, withholding the “but”.

As Henry stood, and Blue turned to look at him, there was a gentle, uncertain noise from the next room.

Henry paused, and tipped his head like a bird. ‘Ah.’ 

His phone, routed through the suit, was ringing, and he answered after retrieving the helmet and placing it dextrously on his still-vertical hair.

Instead of a greeting, he offered; ‘You know those days when everyone looks the same?’

Gansey knew it was Ronan. His insides shrivelled. Ronan was calling. _Ronan_.

God, what if he hadn’t made it? What if he’d gone to help, but because Gansey had taken off with the car, Ronan hadn’t reached Adam in time?

Henry’s perfectly angled eyebrows came back down. ‘Gone where?’

He pushed back into the office, helmet still on, an odd and yet somehow quintessentially Henry look above his half-dressed body.

‘I haven’t seen him.’ He said, mildly. ‘I’m looking, I assure you.’

Gansey clutched the back of his chair.

‘Oh. But why?’ Henry was politely quizzical, and then his face scrunched into a rare display of unease. ‘Are you _sure_?’

His reaction to the answer suggested that Ronan’s response was decidedly crude.

‘I’m looking.’ He sighed. ‘Right now. I’m looking.’ He was cycling through the feeds, running a facial search, ignoring Blue’s increasing frustration.

‘I don’t see him.’ Henry said slowly. ‘I agree, that seems necessary. He must be hiding.’

Gansey looked at Blue, a silent question. _Laumonier, or Adam?_

Henry swivelled and looked at them through the blank metal mask. ‘We need Pythia.’

 

 

 

Ronan cursed his instincts. Cursed Parrish’s obstinance. Cursed everything.

It was something behind his eyes. Ronan recognised it. Determination and cold finality.

Ronan had thought; _If I were him_. And he’d known Adam was going after Chimera.

If anyone had harmed Matthew, that’s what Ronan would have done. But at least Ronan could put up a good fight.

Parrish’s behaviour was just-

He wasn’t stupid. He must have had something up his sleeve. Ronan just didn’t know what. And he didn’t think being stuck to a roof with his own webs lent viability to Parrish’s scheme. If he’d had a decent idea, Parrish could have just explained it, and Ronan would have… helped. Probably.

Leaving Ronan behind seemed to signify that the outcome was going to be questionable, and that Ronan would have tried to prevent him from doing what he intended to do.

Cheng reported Pythia’s decision on where Parrish was. The corner of Caxton and Baines, then tracking north towards the decrepit shopping complex on Broom. Ronan knew this area well. Not as well as Adam, but close.

There was nothing there. A few bedraggled civilians waiting for a bus. Some guy sitting out the front of a liquor shop smoking what might not have been a cigarette. Latecomers to the shops. No Parrish.

Henry was still on the phone line, surrounded by white noise. Ronan demanded an update, and he insisted that was right. Still moving, left to right across the facade of the shops. Slow. Walking pace.

Pythia was sure.

Ronan could hear Blue repeating updates. He wondered if Gansey was with her, and the thought tangled up his rationality.

He ducked in and out of shops, and circled the car park. Pythia must have been wrong. Was it possible they were tracking Noah’s psychic presence instead of Adam’s? Not that Noah was here either. Could it be Ronan?

The Ironbee suit arrived at some speed, graceful through the sheer advantage of incredible engineering. Cheng landed three feet from Ronan, and he stuffed the phone back into his pocket.

‘He’s not here.’

‘I see.’ Henry was genuinely disappointed. ‘I was hoping he was indulging in some retail therapy.’

Ronan swore, disturbing someone climbing into their car nearby, who noticed Henry’s outfit and speeded out of the car park.

Henry fidgeted, and said, indirectly; ‘Around the corner.’

The comment made Ronan tense, but Blue had already appeared, blue tac-vest on and Gansey in tow.

‘ _Dammit_ , we should have passed him.’ She muttered, Gansey’s phone pressed to one ear.

There was absolutely no universe in which Ronan was equipped to deal with this situation.

A moment’s hesitation was broken by Gansey murmuring; ‘Christ, Ronan, your _arm_ …’

Ronan took a breath. Then another. The silence hung.

‘What do we do now?’ Cheng broke in sharply, looking to Blue. She shook her head, and pointed north.

‘I know he _should_ be, but he’s _not_!’ She snapped.

‘Why would Adam do this?’ Gansey asked, and even though it seemed directionless Ronan felt the question was aimed at him. _Why would you do this? Why would you lie?_

‘Noah.’ Ronan answered lowly.

‘But he can’t- He _doesn’t_ \- It’s _suicide_.’ _What were you thinking? How could you?_

‘It’s Parrish.’ Cheng interjected reasonably. ‘He has a plan.’

A plan that involved trapping Ronan? That stung.

Blue froze. ‘Oh. Of course.’ She groaned. ‘I’m surrounded by rich idiots.’

Gansey’s made a small, meekly offended noise, and Cheng flashed a grin.

‘How does Adam get around?’ Blue demanded.

‘The bus.’ Gansey’s confusion at the pop quiz was evident. ‘Us?’

‘The subway.’ Ronan added distastefully, and realisation hit him like cold water. ‘Fuck.’

 

 

 

MetroRail guards didn’t even try to stop two civilians climbing onto the tracks when they were flanked by Ironbee and Aegis.

Cheng scrambled the security cameras as they navigated down into the subway, picking up speed as they recovered the right direction. Gansey seemed slightly horrified by such rampant rule breaking, and Henry was less than enthused about searching through a “long dark tunnel of potential mutilation”, but Blue coolly pointed out that he was the most well prepared for being hit by a train.

He lit the way, barely keeping pace with Ronan, who struggled to see in spite of heightened senses. Blue walked just behind Ronan, partly guiding Gansey and partly holding him back.

After several twists and turns and plenty of frustration, Ronan didn’t need Cheng’s directions anymore.

He could feel the low thrum of anticipation under his skin. Not Adam, or Noah.

Chimera.

Adam had definitely reached him first.

There was a rusted and unstable ladder up to a small service tunnel in one wall, with the appearance of total disuse. Henry examined it and exhaled through his teeth. Gansey swallowed audibly.

Ronan launched himself ahead.

It was sealed a few metres in with a kind of vault door. It was broken, clearly through sheer force, and swung open with a wail, surrendering a mouldy smell from within.

Ronan ducked through, stooping to fit in the tunnel, and found that he was closely followed by Blue, now, one hand projecting a glowing orb to light his path.

He saw the exit as a small aperture of complete darkness, lit only around the edges by Blue’s orb.

There was another subway tunnel beyond it, this one vaulted higher, but lacking functioning guide lights and narrow recesses for the safety of trespassing teenagers.

Ronan growled; ‘This way.’

He felt the change in air density as the tunnel up ahead widened out into an abandoned station, and then he saw Adam, just barely on the edge of Blue’s light, and standing motionless in the middle of the tracks.

Behind Ronan, Gansey released an involuntary sigh of relief, and Ronan threw up a hand to stop him speaking.

He couldn’t see Chimera, but he could _feel_ him. Beyond the light, a humanoid, malingering presence. Nearer to Adam than they were. Standing still.

Blue raised her hand, and the blue light expanded, dimly whispering across rusted metal spokes and weeping concrete until it swept across the entire space.

Chimera was barely six feet from Adam, glittering, nasty eyes fixed on Parrish’s face.

Blue whipped her other hand up so fast Ronan felt the cold air sweep his skin as he lunged forward, but nothing happened. He stayed, paralysed, in the leap, and Blue’s light wavered, but her shield didn’t appear.

Whatever stupor had overcome Adam and Whelk had snared them too.

Henry’s armour whirred and fell silent. Ronan could feel his limbs, and the pent-up energy waiting to propel him forwards, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He just had to wait, silent and transfixed.

 

 

 

Chimera had startled Adam. He’d found his way into the tunnel easily enough, and to the platform, but neither the monster or Noah gave him any warning when he nearly stumbled right past the pile of clothing and hair on the floor.

However human Chimera had been in the past, unstable or not, there was nothing of it left in him.

He’d moved slowly, unfolding like some horror movie creature, and Adam had tripped back, momentarily losing his nerve.

Noah had started whimpering, loudly, somewhere behind him, and begging him to leave.

‘Go back. _Go back_. I’m _scared_ , Adam.’

Adam couldn’t see him anymore, but he recognised the pressure in his thoughts, a heaviness to moving that reminded him inescapably of being clung to by his little brother.

He tripped again, but Chimera was advancing with the intentional lethargy of a predator rather than an enraged psychopath.

‘Help, Noah. Help me.’

Noah wouldn’t help. He kept clinging.

Adam thought of the rooftop.

Ronan Lynch, miraculous and hypnotic, and a pool of his blood, and the blood on Adam’s hands, and Adam’s jacket, and dripping into the basin of Adam’s sink.

Blue, catching an entire goddamn building, and still fighting long afterwards through the fluctuation and fading of her power.

Richard Gansey III, ten years old and looking a murderous villain in the eye and seeing Noah, and recognising he was worth searching for.

And Noah Czerny, eighteen, with everything to live for and everything to lose, having his life stolen by someone who was supposed to be his friend.

Somewhere near him, Adam felt the presence of his friends.

If he couldn’t share Gansey’s moral innocence (and he suspected, for many reasons, he could not) he’d make sure he built his own moral reason around logic he was unequivocally capable of defending.

Namely, that the things which justified his existence were worth sacrificing himself for.

There was a soft pop! and the light seemed to swirl around the tunnel, around the station pillars and over the tracks, circling inwards to try and fill the sudden empty blackness where Chimera had previously been standing.

Adam realised he’d reached out, unconsciously, and it was the only indication of where Chimera had been. He also realised that he hadn’t touched Chimera, despite his anger. He’d merely let out eighteen years of anger formerly pinned into a tiny locked part of his brain, like an A-bomb, let it consume everything in its path, let it crush and annihilate until there was nothing left.

He wondered if Pythia would find him any more quiet.

 

 

 

Adam collapsed, freeing Ronan.

He sprinted into the darkness, clawing at the subsiding feeling of unease shivering in his nerves, doubting, doubting that Whelk was actually gone.

Ironbee appeared beside him, both arms sliding side to side, spreading light and searching for any trace of the monster in the vague shadows.

Gansey had Parrish under the armpits, levering him into a sitting position and patting his hair down in an uncontrolled expression of anxiety. Blue was by his side, leaning close but eyeing the darkness watchfully for any sign of Chimera’s return.

There was a trickle of blood from Adam’s nose all the way down his neck, black in the gloom, and Ronan was suddenly, painfully afraid. 

‘We need to go. Now.’ Blue hissed, tugging on Gansey’s shoulder.

Ronan could feel his hair standing on end, fear distorting into anger. Where the fuck was Whelk? What did Adam _do_? Why the hell had they brought Gansey down here?

He lurched forward and grabbed half of Parrish from Gansey, hauling them both upright.

Adam’s breathing was a ponderous but steady effort. He fell back against Gansey, and when Gansey stumbled, tipped forward into Ronan’s shoulder.

‘Let me take him.’ Ronan grunted, and Gansey unwillingly yielded possession of Adam so Ronan could fold him over a shoulder.

Blue claimed Gansey’s arm, poised for a defensive manoeuvre. Ironbee flung an arm out for light and motioned for Ronan to go in front of him.

They retreated from the tunnels.


	26. Loneliness is okay when you have someone to share it with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so long. I'm sorry. I had no idea where to chapter break this.
> 
> ** Also sorry to everyone who got duplicate comment responses or responses to old messages or didn't get responses, I didn't realise how long it had been and I want you all to know that they are all deeply appreciated!

Adam stirred several times during the evening before he finally woke up. He was plagued by drowsiness, a feeling of being submerged outside of time, like in a bad fever. He was upside down for a while, then in the back of a car, then on a sofa.

When the fog lifted marginally, he was in the dark, apart from a small light hovering across from him.

‘Gansey?’ It sounded like he’d swallowed gravel.

Gansey put the laptop aside. ‘Adam? Are you okay?’

That seemed like a complex question to answer. Adam was alive, at least, but he felt like someone had driven a sledgehammer into his head and a car into his ribs. There were two strips of surgical tape over Gansey’s eyebrow, and an expression of wounded anxiety carved onto his face.

‘Noah?’ Adam asked. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘No. I’m sorry.’ Gansey shook his head. ‘But he might be here. The others are downstairs. They needed to… fix Ronan.’

Adam tried to rub his eyes and only succeeded in dropping a hand limply onto his face.

‘Ronan.’ He repeated carefully.

Gansey took his glasses off, and folded his arms protectively across his chest.

‘You knew?’ It wasn’t an accusation, but a plea for reassurance.

‘Yes.’ Adam tried to sit up.

‘Since the start?’

‘God, no.’

‘How-’ Gansey curled up tighter. ‘How could he do this?’

‘Because he thinks he has to.’

‘Kill people?’ Gansey laughed, frightened and bitter. Adam frowned.

‘I think I killed Chimera.’

He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know exactly what had happened. But if Noah tapped into Adam’s strength, surely Adam was capable of doing the same in reverse? He felt like it had been him, not Noah, erasing Chimera from existence with a single burst of fury. He knew Chimera was gone, and he knew he felt empty, but it would be easier if Noah was here to explain. Maybe Adam had scared him too much.

Gansey stared at his hands. ‘I know.’

‘Isn’t that the same?’ It wasn’t that Adam wouldn’t mind how Gansey felt about it, it was merely that he didn’t have the emotional energy to care right _now_.

‘One unstoppable killing machine is not dozens of normal people.’ Gansey protested, however reluctantly.

‘They weren’t innocent.’ Adam reminded him. ‘He had reasons-’

‘That’s not the point. He doesn’t have the right to decide who dies.’ His voice was strained. ‘What if he did kill someone innocent? How can he be certain he hasn’t, or won’t? That’s why there are laws, and juries, and prisons, so people are accountable for their actions and one person doesn’t go around picking who gets… capital punishment. Ronan isn’t-’

Gansey hesitated. Adam sighed. ‘Infallible?’

Gansey wiped his eyes. ‘I believe he killed people he thought deserved it. I _really_ believe it. But what _is_ he? What type of person can take lives that easily?’

‘He’s still Ronan.’ Adam said bluntly.

‘I don’t know.’ Gansey persisted. ‘How can I trust him? How do you trust him?’

There was a pause. Adam pressed a hand to his lips. He could recall, with startling clarity, Lynch’s hand around his ankle, grounding him. _Because I want you to live_. Adam didn’t simply trust that Ronan’s actions would benefit him, he trusted _Ronan_.

‘I trust his judgement.’ He answered finally.

‘Sometimes I think I’m an idiot.’ Gansey confessed slowly. ‘For holding on to what I learned growing up. It was so easy for me, and I know… I know that can be misleading.’

Adam could hear the quiet pity in his voice, and feel the way it pulled at the hollow space in his chest, scraps of anger left behind which weren’t even enough to evoke a scowl. He just looked back at Gansey blankly. Maybe Noah had talked to him about Robert Parrish. Maybe Noah had needed to justify whatever he’d done, as much as Ronan or Adam had to.

‘It’s harder now.’ Adam said suddenly. ‘That he’s dead. Because… I still wish he’d forgive me.’

He wasn’t sure his father was dead, either. He wasn’t sure of many things involving Noah.

‘For what?’ If Gansey had been upset before, he was distraught now.

‘I don’t know.’ Adam admitted. ‘For being alive. For being me.’

There was another silence. Gansey muttered; ’You deserved better.’

‘I got better.’ Adam shrugged weakly. ‘I got Noah.’

He raised his gaze to Gansey’s face and waited.

‘I know… I know moral relativity is logical.’ Gansey started uncertainly. ‘But I… I’m not sure I can accept it. I don’t know what I would do- I don’t know how someone places their trust in arbitrary morals. I want to believe that we’re capable of more than that. Something greater.’

‘Humanity might be intellectually capable of creating a unimpeachable moral standard- ’ Adam murmured. ‘-but not everyone will be able to functionally adhere to it.’

Gansey hummed in uneasy agreement, rubbed his jaw and his mouth with his thumb. ‘But it’s Ronan. He’s… family.’

Adam could hear guilt in his voice. Responsibility and longing.

‘His choices aren’t your choices.’ Adam told him. Arguing was more straightforward, without feelings clawing out of him, filling his head. ‘Just because people make choices you don’t agree with doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to forgive them.’

Gansey closed his eyes. Adam looked away, gave him a moment. He wished Blue was here. He’d never been particularly adept at comforting people.

‘Thank you.’ Gansey said softly. He stood up and moved around the little table between them to lay a hand on Adam’s shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you alone now.’

He left the room, and Adam eased his head back onto a cushion.

 

 

 

The next time Adam woke up, Ronan was lying on the other couch. He might have been asleep, but he had headphones in, which made it seem less likely. There was light outside the window. Dawn.

Ronan didn’t react when Adam moved, so he occupied himself in silently calling for Noah.

Gansey had said he hadn’t seen Noah, and Adam had assumed he meant since they’d returned to Foxway. The possibility that he hadn’t seen Noah in the tunnels was more troubling. Admittedly, Adam hadn’t seen him properly either, but he’d known Noah was there. He knew Noah had been there when Gansey and the others had arrived. He remembered Noah’s presence, before he’d crushed Chimera, or ripped him apart, or otherwise obliterated him.

He couldn’t remember afterwards well enough to know if Noah had still been there, and that was a source of increasing anxiety.

If he didn’t know what he’d done to Chimera, how could he be sure what he’d done to Noah?

He’d only meant to give Noah as much strength as he needed to get rid of Chimera for good. But Noah hadn’t wanted to do it, and Adam thought Noah was just afraid of losing his connection, of actually _ending_ Chimera, so Adam had done it himself. At least, he thought he had.

Adam dropped his head into his hands. Emotions were starting to crawl back in, disturbing the peace in his thoughts. It was doubt, mostly. There was a reason he kept everything under control. There was a reason he tried not to let his anger overpower him.

What if he’d hurt Noah? What if the rage had burned back through the link Noah had with him? What if erasing Chimera really had taken Noah with him?

His hands trembled. He pulled them away from his face.

Ronan’s eyes were open, but he was looking at the ceiling. His arm was bloodless, and the shoulder patched with a crisp white square.

‘Ronan.’

He looked across at Adam, dislodging one earbud with a brisk swipe. ‘What?’

‘Have you seen Noah?’

’No.’ He blinked, slow and reptilian. ‘Are you going to school?’

‘No.’ Adam twisted his fingers together, trying to concentrate. He didn’t know how this worked, keeping Noah alive. But if he could remember how he _felt_ it worked, maybe he could reach out, find him.

‘Maybe you’re not strong enough.’ Ronan remarked coolly. Adam tried not to glare and failed. Ronan shrugged. ‘You’re the battery, right? Whatever you did probably fried your brain.’

‘My brain is _fine_.’ He protested, silently grateful that Ronan was even still talking to him.

Adam tried to trace the origin of his relationship with Noah. He’d tried before, briefly, but the effect had been nauseatingly confusing. At some point, Noah must have arrived. At some point, Adam’s memories must have been fabricated. Finding the line was the difficult bit.

It wasn’t so much that Adam had plentiful memories of Noah. He didn’t. In fact, he had very few of him at all, and practically none from when he was a child. It just seemed impossible to equate a lack of memories to a lack of Noah. Every time he tried to think of it, it bounced off his mind, like telling himself to believe that the laws of physics weren’t real.

He kept trying. He kept trying to find the source memories, the ones that tied him to Noah, the ones that Noah must have made from scratch. They’d been together for so many similar days and nights, making dinner, or in front of the television, or walking to the bus, or reading in the library. The only different memories were ones involving Gansey and the others.

He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t-

Something in the corner of the room cracked violently and loudly. Ronan glanced around, chin lifting defensively, but Adam didn’t move. He felt fatigued again, like his brain was pressing on the inside of his skull.

Ronan stood up, pulling his headphones loose.

‘Parrish.’ He offered a hand. ‘I’m going for a drive.’

Adam took it, unsurprised by the steady warmth of Ronan’s skin and the ease with which Ronan pulled him to his feet. There was a candle on the end table in the corner, its glass shell broken into two halves. Adam tried very hard to ignore it, and followed Ronan out of the room.

 

 

 

Ronan drove to Monmouth, and skidded into the garage.

‘Hang on, I’m gonna grab something.’ He interrupted Adam’s stretch for the door handle, and left the car, slamming the door. It was still early, but the traffic was already picking up outside. Adam felt formless and awkward, curved into the passenger seat in his crumpled uniform. He couldn’t imagine where Ronan intended to go, but _away_ seemed like a valid option in so many ways.

The inside of the BMW was warm and comfortable, and he struggled not to fall asleep in the few minutes Ronan was gone.

Ronan flung open the door, but the black flapping ball of feathers that exploded through it was what startled Adam upright.

Chainsaw landed on the gearstick, fluffed up and staring haughtily at Ronan as he followed her in. She fidgeted from claw to claw, until Ronan waved her onto Adam’s leg. He had a duffel bag with him which he tossed into the backseat.

‘Road trip?’ Adam asked dryly, shifting Chainsaw onto one knee so her talons weren’t digging into his thigh.

‘As good as.’ Ronan replied airily, revving the engine.

 

 

 

Adam went back to sleep shortly after they left Monmouth, despite the volume and style of music playing through the car stereo. Ronan woke him up once, catching his shoulder to prevent his head from hitting the window during a sharp turn. Adam balled up his blazer to use it as a pillow, exchanging some warmth for some comfort. They were already on the outskirts of the city.

He woke up again when Ronan returned to the car, evidently after some brief shopping trip. He dropped a couple of plastic bags in the back seat, and a paper bag smelling of grease on Adam’s lap, instantly provoking Chainsaw’s interest from where she was stooping on the shoulder of his seat.

‘Where are we?’

‘About eight hundred miles north of the Bahamas.’ Ronan replied easily. ‘Give some to her, would you?’

Adam fished in the bag for a handful of fries and fed them to Chainsaw.

The sun was gleaming off Ronan’s dashboard, which suggested that Adam had been asleep for at least an hour, probably longer. He ate a bit himself, and was rewarded with a sudden, gut-plunging sensation of hunger.

Ronan had gotten burgers, too, but Adam felt too guilty to help himself to them. He didn’t know where they were going, but it wasn’t like he’d offered any assistance, financial or otherwise. He’d just wanted to get out of the mess he’d made for a little while.

They were in farming country. Ronan called it the boondocks and cheerfully threatened to leave either Adam or Chainsaw or both on the side of the road to fend for themselves. It wasn’t particularly scary, as threats went. Chainsaw just quirked her glossy head at him nonchalantly and Adam was familiar enough with the area to suspect he could survive.

Eventually Ronan forced him to eat by complaining about his wilful fattening of the bird, and with a full stomach Adam found it impossible not to drift back to sleep.

The last time he woke, Ronan’s door was still open, and sunlight was spilling across his empty seat. Adam shuffled until he could see through the windscreen.

Ronan was wrestling with a padlocked gate, a few hundred yards back from the main road. Adam wasn’t certain how he got it open, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but a few seconds later Ronan slid back into the car.

‘Christ. You know you sleep like the dead?’

Adam smirked.

Ronan closed the gate after them, and reapplied the padlock. It was an odd gesture. Adam couldn’t quite figure out what it meant, or where they were, or why. That was just Ronan, unpredictable, and somehow capable of finding unexpected ways to displace Adam’s discomfort.

The driveway beyond the gate was long, winding and mostly dirt with some patches of gravel. At least it was fairly even, and it fed through trees and ragged woodland until it hit a strangely bare stretch of flat ground. Adam felt the wheels skid from gravel onto a compacted surface, and Ronan accelerated.

Adam snatched the ceiling strap, and Ronan laughed.

He was driving fast, hellishly, the smooth ground whipping past underneath them, colourless except for the spiderwebs of green grass. Adam realised it grew up between the cracks in the concrete.

He demanded breathlessly; ‘What is this place?’

Ronan whooped, braked, and swung the back end of the BMW around. Adam felt the tires skid and skitter and unconsciously gathered Chainsaw close to his chest with his free hand.

Ronan swung the wheel the other way, flicking the rear tires in the opposite direction, and sped forwards.

Maybe this was where Ronan came when he needed space. Maybe this was the place the Widower came to leave everything behind. For Adam, the library had always seemed like a safe place to retreat to, when he couldn’t win a fight with his feelings. It seemed appropriate that Ronan’s safe place was as customised for speed as Adam’s was designed for preoccupation.

Adam could see something large occupying the horizon, set on one side of Ronan’s race track, a gigantic shed. On the other side, there was a watchtower, thirteen or fifteen metres high, built into an ugly brick building. He would have peered forwards, if he hadn’t been pinned into his seat by the momentum of the car.

Ronan drove right up to the stretch of ground between the shed and the watchtower and wrenched the car into a vicious semi-circle.

The car stopped. Ronan slammed the handbrake on, grinning like a wolf. ‘Welcome home, Parrish.’

Adam grinned back, helplessly elated, and released a significantly less amused Chainsaw out his door. ‘You own an airfield?’

‘Retired.’ Ronan was already outside, leaning on the roof of the car and basking in the winter sunshine. ‘We called it the Airstrip.’

He looked sharp and victorious. Adrenaline suited Ronan Lynch down to the ground. ‘No wonder you drive like a maniac.’

Ronan acknowledged this comment with a rude gesture.

‘Come along, Parrish.’ He stalked away, towards the hangar.

‘Did you grow up near here?’

‘I grew up exactly _here_.’

‘In the hangar?’

‘Yes, Parrish, I slept with the planes. Made toast in the jet exhaust.’

Adam snorted, but he kept pace with Ronan, intrigued. ‘Explains a lot.’

’There’s a house a mile or so back.’ Ronan explained. ‘I’ll show you later.’

He reached the edge of the massive door, and rapidly dispatched the lock. ‘Are you ready?’

Adam took a step back, crossing his arms cautiously, and greatly amusing Ronan. He wasn’t sure what he expected to be inside, but it sat somewhere on a spectrum from nothing at all to a literal unicorn.

Ronan hauled the door open, sliding it with a scraping noise and a considerable bang when it reached the furthest point of its tracks. Adam edged forward, still behind Ronan’s shoulder, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

He didn’t speak. He just stared.

Ronan lunged forward, filled with the unbounded energy of being home, of belonging.

 

 

 

‘Holy.’ Adam stumbled over the threshold. ‘Shit.’

Everything Ronan had dreamed about was still here, everything he’d expected to feel was stronger than he’d imagined. Niall’s cars, which Ronan uncovered one-by-one, the motorbikes dissected into parts, the engines and contraptions displayed on shelves. The Grumman plane, with the Irish flag painted around the nose, and a shamrock painted on the tail.

Fluorescent lights, switched off, marking shapes of vehicles, vacancy signs, and flashy invitations to play poker and drink cocktails.

A candy cane painted ferris wheel seat, and abandoned pieces of a rollercoaster, and what looked like the top of a WWII tank.

A ride on mower, parts of old planes and helicopters, tractor wheels, and a selection of disassembled generators.

Above everything else, Niall’s climbing frame, ladders and ropes and chains and little suspended platforms and tightropes.

Adam came inside, touched the tail-fin of a lime-green Cadillac with quiet admiration. His eyes were larger and brighter than ever, consuming everything in sight.

‘My father studied to be a chemical engineer.’ Ronan explained. ‘He loved engineering. He loved… things.’

He pointed to a series of curious-looking garden gnomes distributed amongst the mechanical objects on the shelves. Adam smiled.

’This is incredible.’

Ronan felt relief rush his bloodstream like drug. He’d suspected, but he’d never really known, that Adam might be one of the only people capable of appreciating the magnitude, the importance of this as much as Ronan did. Adam might be the only person who could look across this room and see more than the money in a Cadillac and a Jaguar and a half-finished Harley. Adam would see the way the Lynches had viewed every object that had come into this building with unrepentant and indiscriminate delight, whether it was the cherry red shell of a 1955 Porsche or the cherry red hat of a gnome with a little fishing rod and a bare ass.

Ronan pulled open the Cadillac and rolled back the roof to reveal spearmint coloured seats and steering wheel. There was a toy car in the backseat, one of Matthew’s, that he’d forgotten at some point years ago. Ronan picked it up and placed it on the dashboard.

He remembered training here. Mostly him and Niall, while Matthew played in the open Cadillac or pretended to fly the Grumman, making pop-pop-pop-pop-pop noises to imitate the machine gun.

Declan, sometimes, too, especially when they’d been younger. The older Declan got, the more real-world he got. Ronan had always hated it.

‘What do real people do with their lives?’ He tossed out casually, stepping onto his father’s workbench and wrapping a chain around his wrist.

Adam ducked to examine the engine of a Mustang with slow, entranced movements. ‘Jobs.’

‘Is that it?’

Ronan heard him laugh. ‘Feels like it.’

‘Is that what you’re trying so hard for?’ Ronan climbed, up the length of the chain until he could get his feet on a sloped metal beam.

‘I don’t have a choice.’ Adam answered. ‘You don’t ever think beyond kicking ass and taking names?’

’To what?’ There was another rope up to a horizontal ladder, and Ronan pulled at it experimentally.

‘To Gansey being President.’ Adam suggested, and Ronan sniggered.

‘That’d be right. And Sargent finally gut-punching her cousin.’

‘And Henry achieving world domination.’

‘Trust me, once you’ve seen him dancing to Madonna in one of those suits, you’re gonna know that’s a horrible future.’

Adam’s laughter was audible from where Ronan was tiptoeing along a pipe fifteen feet above him. ‘Nightmarish.’

‘Correct.’

Adam left the engine, and puzzled his way into the Grumman. Ronan concentrated on climbing, following old patterns and ingrained routes to get to the highest point up amongst the rafters, where Niall would leave a flag or a gift or a surprise. They’d raced to the top so often that Ronan felt curiously detached, moving slowly among the obstacles by himself.

He was readily distracted when Adam’s head popped into view through the reinforced glass windows of the cockpit, when he stooped to examine the controls, or settled into the chair, or moved more things Matthew had inevitably cluttered up the place with.

Ronan had reached the top corner, unravelled a blue silk tie, and was gradually making his way back along a different route by the time Adam reappeared. There were cobwebs in his hair and on his shoulders, but he held aloft a tan bomber jacket, rescued from inside and stitched with airforce insignia and a name badge. Aurora had made it for Matthew when he’d turned twelve, and he’d worn it constantly, as oversized and precious to him as anything was ever likely to be.

Adam placed it, neatly, in the Cadillac’s front seat, and moved over to the work bench. Ronan watched him sit, and examine the dusty carburetor abandoned mid-inspection.

There was a little nest up ahead, padded with a few pillows and blankets. Ronan stepped into it, feeling it sway gently with his momentum. More toys were tangled up in the contents, figurines of Autobots and Decepticons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ben 10 aliens. Ronan plucked them out and pitched them in low curving arcs into the back of the Cadillac.

Adam had delicately opened the drawers of the workbench and withdrawn a set of tools and something small and metallic he was turning over in his hand.

‘What’s that?’ Ronan called roughly, slumping over the edge of the nest.

Adam lifted the small thing in one hand to show him, teeth flashing in childish amusement. ‘Spam!’ He called back.

‘Foul.’ Ronan commented. ‘How fucking old is that?’

‘It expired eighteen years ago.’ Adam replied jovially. ‘It’s older than you.’

Ronan grinned.

‘Probably more mature, too.’ Adam added, and Ronan threw a toy Bumblebee at him.

It bounced off the corner of the work table and Adam picked it up off the floor. ‘Noah and I had one of these.’ His smile faded. ‘Or I did, at least.’

‘You seem like a robot kid.’ Ronan observed bluntly.

Adam blinked up at him once, and smiled again. ‘You seem like a car kid. Or a martial arts kid.’

‘I was both.’ Ronan assured him proudly. ‘I also enjoyed dinosaurs.’

‘As, no doubt, they would enjoy you.’

Ronan savoured his smile for a few moments before he moved on from the nest, and climbed higher. Adam looked back to the carburetor, but his enthusiasm seemed to have dissipated. Eventually Ronan hesitated, pulled on his webshooters, and swung lazily through the other obstacles until he could toe the backrest of the Cadillac, then dropped into the seat, cursing liberally when he landed on a Decepticon.

Adam returned from the bench and leaned across Ronan to retrieve a Donatello figurine.

He asked softly; ‘Do you think I killed Noah?’

’No.’ Ronan bent forwards, picking up toys and flicking them into a pile in the front seat.

‘Why?’

‘Because you used your head.’ Ronan found a Rafael and passed it to Adam. ‘I don’t know what the hell you did, but you used your head, and you wouldn’t have let yourself hurt him.’

Adam looked at both turtles for a long, silent moment, before he finally spoke. ‘You know you’re pretty much a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?’

Ronan bristled. ‘The fuck I am.’

Adam pointed Rafael at him. ‘Teenager. Mutant. Debatably a ninja.’

Ronan gaped, then scowled. ‘Fuck.’

‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Ronan.’ Adam repeated, merrily. ‘Heroes in a half-shell, turtle power!’

Ronan coughed to disguise an involuntary snort.

‘Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool but rude, Michelangelo… ah…’

Ronan finished morbidly; ‘- is a party dude.’

Adam laughed.

‘I’m not surprised that’s what you forgot, Parrish.’ Ronan planted his hands on the door and leapt out of the car. ‘C’mon.’

‘Where?’

‘Driving lessons.’

 

 

 

Driving lessons consisted of Adam lurching the BMW forwards, and Ronan sitting in the passenger seat, eating Twizzlers. Adam discovered that Ronan’s idea of “lessons” meant offering the occasional uncomplimentary sarcastic remark, and that his idea of “groceries” meant candy, alcohol, and large quantities of reheatable lasagna.

He was religiously careful about not treading on Adam’s toes, and didn’t produce any actual reprimand of substance. There was a lot of eye-rolling and pointing and swearing involved, but nothing interpretable as even remotely serious.

Ronan at home seemed to have a weight lifted from his shoulders. Adam had assumed that his avoidance of the place was due to traumatic memories and associations, but for the first time, it was as though Ronan wasn’t being haunted by his past.

‘Jesus, Parrish, don’t - God, you don’t have to slam it into the gear.’ The car lurched, and Adam lurched with it, and Ronan choked on a Twizzler. ‘ _Fuck_.’

‘There’s five things at once, Lynch, I’m trying.’

‘I despair.’ Ronan replied dramatically. ‘Clutches aren’t binary, Parrish, calm down. That’s the fucking windscreen wipers. Turn them off. Not that one, _that_ one. _Not_ that one. Jesus fuck.’

They switched places, and Ronan raced the car up and down the airfield while Adam sat in the passenger seat, alternately laughing and terrified, and trying not to choke on Oreos when Ronan made impromptu “vroom” noises and mimicked the squeal of his tires.

Afterwards they investigated the watchtower. There was an old databank of computers on the ground floor which immediately attracted Adam’s attention, accompanied by an extremely incongruous pool table. Ronan seemed more focused on gaining access to the room occupying the back half of the building. There was a brick and concrete spiral staircase leading up into the watchtower, chipped away in parts to facilitate climbing, as most of the inside walls had been.

When Adam followed Ronan, he was standing in a comfortable office space, lined with bookshelves and with a solid oak desk to each side, and beyond that was a glass walled room filled with gleaming metal benches, unlit fridges and laboratory apparatus. Ronan withdrew a book and delicately turned the pages, leaning on the edge of one of the desks.

Adam followed the line of the bookshelves, tracing spines with methodical fascination.

‘Ronan-’

‘I know.’ Ronan lowered the book he was holding. ‘They were my parents. I _know_.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You would have liked them.’ Ronan said firmly. ’They were-’ He looked sideways momentarily, at the fountain pen on the desk, the motionless Newton’s Cradle, the framed photograph on one corner. ‘You would have belonged.’

Adam felt his stomach knot briefly and painfully. _Belonging_. That was an unfamiliar concept.

Ronan touched the book lovingly and replaced it on the shelf. ‘I’m going to climb into the bird’s nest.’

The top of the watchtower opened onto a tiny balcony, and most of the inside was taken up by telescopes of various sizes and binoculars and bird spotting guides.

Ronan sat on the railing and Adam stood beside him, looking out across the airstrip, towards the hangar, and past it to the distant house. There was no sound this far from the road, and the horizon in both directions was obscured by foliage. The lawn near the house was dotted with several larger, older trees, and Adam could imagine Ronan Lynch growing up there, climbing as naturally and skilfully as his unique genetic heritage encouraged.

No wonder he was such a wild creature. Even without the powers, Ronan Lynch would have been something incredible.

‘Why don’t you come back here?’

The wistfulness Ronan had, looking at everything here, convinced Adam that he’d been separated from this place, maybe as long as he’d been separated from his parents. Unless it had been sold, and they were breaking in, Adam couldn’t fathom it. Ronan was happier here. Free.

Maybe it was the only way he could stay loyal to his cause.

‘Declan.’ Ronan answered, voice hardening. ‘My brother. I’m not allowed to be here as long as I’m… fighting.’

Adam couldn’t hear any of the familial affection Ronan had displayed previously, and there did seem to be an insurmountable cruelty in refusing to let him come home, especially when home must have been the closest thing to safety Ronan had left.

‘He’s trying to protect Matthew.’ Ronan continued. ‘I get it.’

It didn’t sound like that made it hurt any less.

Ronan insisted that they race back to the ground, hardly a competition when all he had to do was jump over the railing, but after several long and slow minutes Adam met him outside the door.

Chainsaw was perched on his shoulder, and as Adam approached she regurgitated a few cricket’s legs down Ronan’s shirt. He brushed them off and cooed affectionately.

‘She’s judging your diet.’ Adam pointed out.

Ronan snorted. ‘I’ll have you know I have a constitution of iron.’

‘I hope you have a liver of steel.’

‘Self-repairing.’ Ronan reminded him loftily.

‘Do you get drunk?’

‘Constantly.’ Ronan grinned. It seemed reasonable (and likely) that he would, given that drunkenness wasn’t due to cellular damage. ‘Do you?’

Adam shook his head.

‘Ever?’

‘I threw the alcohol out.’ He confessed, startled by the distinct memory. He wouldn’t have been able to afford it since, even though he probably would have been able to find someone to sell it to him.

That must have been Noah’s influence, Adam realised sharply. He wouldn’t have touched any of his Dad’s booze if he’d honestly expected him to come back.

‘Probably smart.’ Ronan smirked. ‘You look like a lightweight.’

Adam rolled his eyes. Ronan pinched a long line of spiderweb ( _actual_ spiderweb) off his shoulder. ’Better go home.’

Adam didn’t realise he’d frowned until he saw surprise spreading over Ronan’s features. ‘Already?’

‘Not your home.’ Ronan corrected. He turned his head away, sharply, and stared at the BMW. ‘Test your recall.’

‘Don’t kill me when I break your clutch.’ Adam responded, without bothering to hide his relief.

Ronan frowned. ‘I make no promises.’

Adam stalled the car twice on the drive to the house, and Ronan threw Oreos at him. Chainsaw had gotten into the leftover fries, and Ronan was insistent that she was visibly fatter. He took the toys they’d found with him, in the footspace, and wore the leather jacket Adam had found in the plane.

Adam didn’t think they were his. He treated them with the same gentle affection as he’d had with his parents’ cars and books, but Adam had no idea what he was planning to do with them.

The house was even more chaotic than the hangar. Mismatched furniture and a variety of old things reminded Adam of Foxway more than it reminded him of Ronan.The only theme seemed to be a love of whimsy. Everything in the hall, and the kitchen, and the irrepressibly comfortable living room seemed to have a streak of individuality about it.

A brief sojourn to the power box was enough to turn the power back on, and they ate microwaved lasagna as a late lunch in Ronan’s old living room. The heating wasn’t on, and Ronan only flicked on a couple of lamps and pulled a few of the blinds, but the room felt warm. Ronan sat on the floor and shared his lasagna with Chainsaw. Adam sat on the couch and watched, laughing every time Ronan got spattered with tomato sauce while she tried to digest it.

He felt fatigue encroaching upon his quiet enjoyment of the afternoon, and battled it by standing up and poking around.

There was a range of framed photographs off the piano. Adam lifted one, squinting in disbelief. ‘Your hair is curly.’

Ronan looked up from an examination of the fireplace. ‘You’re mistaken.’

‘Here’s another one.’ Adam picked up a second frame. ‘What are you _wearing_?’

‘It’s an illusion, Parrish, it was all photoshop.’

Adam couldn’t stop himself smiling back at the Lynch family photos. There was Ronan, yes, curiously similar in spite of his youth and innocence and copious dark curls. Another brother, less sharp but undeniably alike, lighter hair and sterner features. And the boy who must have been the youngest, probably the owner of all the figurines, as curly-haired as Ronan but blonde, and indefatigably enthusiastic in every picture.

Then there was the golden-haired woman, beautiful and tall and slender and as buoyantly cheerful as her children, and there was Ronan’s father, ferociously handsome, sharp as a knife, and the distracting resemblance to his middle son.

Adam didn’t have to question him as something supernatural, in the same way he didn’t have to question Ronan as something supernatural.

‘Parrish.’ Ronan paused in his casual building of a fire in order to direct the way upstairs. ‘You’d better wash those webs off before you get bitten by something and turn into one of us.’

Adam had to assess this remark very carefully before he accepted that Ronan was joking.

He was grateful for the opportunity to wash off not just cobwebs but the pervasive sensations of train tunnel and school. The water was hot, too, unlike home, and Adam got to admire the row of rubber ducks lined up on the windowsill.

He understood why Ronan had brought him here. This place was out of dreams and magic, and even the lingering fears about Noah couldn’t smother him while he was here.

Probably it wasn’t just the Airstrip. Probably it was Ronan too, as distracting and beguiling as anything or anywhere he could have taken Adam.

Heat curled around Adam’s neck, down his spine, through his stomach. He desperately wanted to avoid humiliation. He wanted to consider this objectively, but it was _Ronan_ , goddammit. It was strength and power and intellect, and his brilliant blue eyes and his arrogance.

It was rocket boosters and nitro and diamonds, and it was blankets and music and comfort.

Adam wasn’t designed for things like that. He wasn’t made to experience glamour, or receive affection.

He knew Ronan wanted something other than friendship. He knew it the way any rational person knew that the universe extended out into the unseeable, a logical but theoretical knowledge. But knowing wasn’t the same as understanding. Knowing, in a sense, wasn’t the same as believing Ronan Lynch could look at Adam and see something worth his attention.

Adam left the shower, dressing in the clean clothes Ronan had given him. He felt clean, not pursued by some sordid curse that dragged him towards mayhem and murder.

Ronan had gotten the fire started, but he wasn’t in the living room. He was meticulously arranging the figurines in positions down the hall, in the kitchen and on the staircase, all standing, eyes directed at the entrances.

Adam stood in the doorframe to the dining room and watched him adjust the arms and legs of Transformers until they stood up straight on the table. ‘Matthew?’

‘He’ll know.’ Ronan explained intently. ’It’ll drive Declan crazy.’

‘They don’t live here?’

‘Not anymore. They visit, sometimes.’

Adam didn’t ask how he knew. Didn’t ask how often Ronan had tortured himself thinking about coming back, thinking about sneaking in, alone, thinking about seeing his family again.

‘When you’re done, will you come back?’

‘Done?’ Ronan twisted to look at him, confusion with an edge of anger.

‘When you do what you intend to do.’

Ronan straightened, and the confusion had vanished, leaving only the anger.

‘Do something I’ve failed to get anywhere near doing in two years?’

Adam didn’t attempt to soothe his rage. ‘Just because you haven’t, doesn’t mean you can’t.’

His jaw tightened. Adam could see him swallowing harsher words. ‘I’m waiting on your bright ideas, Parrish.’

‘You’ve got me.’ Adam felt his breath catch involuntarily at his own sentence. ‘And Gansey. And Blue. And Henry. And Noah, if… You’ve got help.’

Ronan blinked at him, the figurines forgotten. ‘You…’ Uncertainty was cut off by derision. ‘You really think Gansey would help _me_?’

‘He wants to.’

Ronan shook his head, looked away, glowering.

‘I’m not a fool, Ronan. I’m telling you he wants to help.’

‘I don’t-’ Ronan hesitated. ‘I don’t think you’re a fool.’

Adam shrugged. He wanted to move closer, but he was afraid to do it.

‘Adam.’ The way Ronan said his name made his chest ache. He couldn’t think beyond the feeling, beyond the uncertainty. ‘How do you _know_?’

‘He loves you.’ Adam was closer before he was conscious of moving. He was folding his fingers around Ronan’s wrist before he knew what he was doing. ‘You’re _family_.’

Ronan looked at his hand, then his face. Adam had seen this, Ronan’s vulnerability, but it affected him as fresh as the first time. Ronan moved, raised his other arm, and Adam caught it too.

He knew what Ronan wanted. He wanted to _be_ what Ronan wanted. He wanted _Ronan_.

Adam kissed him.


	27. *theme from the Twilight Zone plays softly in the background*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't think I have anything much to say at the mo, except thank you all very much <3

There was a soft thud.

It took Ronan a second to recognise the noise was him hitting the table and knocking over a figurine as he tilted back. It took him another second to realise that Adam was pushing him, leaning intoxicatingly close despite holding Ronan’s arms between the two of them.

He didn’t know, he didn’t realise that he was going to take Ronan apart, that Ronan felt like glass and sharp edges and kissing Adam was like shattering into pieces.

Adam pulled back enough to take a breath. His thumbs were pressed into Ronan’s wrists, the matching flutters of his pulse were Ronan’s lifeline. His eyes were closed. Thinking.

There were nearly invisible droplets of water clinging to the curve of his eyelashes. There was heat curling off his skin, and his breath brushing Ronan’s jaw.

Adam kissed him again, forcefully, challengingly. Ronan couldn’t understand what was going through his head. An assessment, maybe, or an argument. He opened one hand, releasing Ronan’s arm, and raised it to his face, thumb ghosting over Ronan’s jaw, fingertips gliding up through Ronan’s short hair, behind his ear.

Ronan thought; _god_.

He waited for Adam to wake up, to change his mind, to make his conclusion. He let himself exist only in the sensation. He let his fingers graze Adam’s ribs.

Ronan caught himself, drawing an uneven breath, and dropped his forehead against Adam’s cheekbone.

‘Ronan.’ It was barely a whisper. Ronan was fragmenting. Adam’s other hand slipped around his shoulder, as though he’d understood. He added, a little more steadily; ’What’s next?’

 _What’s next?_ meant a different, unspoken question. _What do you want?_ Ronan wanted Adam. He wanted revenge, and he wanted his family to be whole again. What did Adam want? He must already know. He always knew.

Ronan exhaled, readjusting to reality, to Parrish’s collected presence, his warm, incredible proximity.

‘Sleep.’ He answered, quiet and rough against Adam’s jaw.

He felt Adam smile. ‘You don’t sleep.’

‘Music.’ He corrected. ‘And sleep.’

‘Then battle plans.’ Adam was one hell of an ally. He was a force of nature.

‘Yes.’ Ronan lifted his head, enough to catch Adam’s gaze, enough to see his flushed skin. He didn’t move, but he watched Ronan’s face with a measured silence. Ronan could feel the palm of Adam’s hand warm against his neck. He couldn’t tell which one of them was stealing heat from the other.

He tipped slightly closer, stole another kiss. It was _allowed_. _Wanted_.

 

It wasn’t even dusk, but there were clouds rolling across the sky, a tapestry of grey black closing them into darkness. Ronan wanted to be able to think, but all he thought about was Adam. He sat on the sofa nearest to the fireplace, and Ronan settled beside his feet, watching the flames casting patterns of light across his skin.

Ronan had to shed the leather jacket to cope with the heat, and Chainsaw sat, warily but plumply, at the far end of the rug.

‘Geminae was after the Widower.’ Adam said sleepily. ‘He didn’t know about you.’

‘Sargent said the prick works for Viridiveste.’ Ronan added gruffly. ‘Explains why he came after the Veil.’

‘But not you.’

‘Not me.’

It felt strange, discussing the Widower like it was a part of himself. He’d been so acclimatised to hearing and talking about the damn vigilante as a separate entity that this seemed like a pretence.

‘But he’s trying to protect VVC?’

‘That’s what the Gray guy said.’ Ronan shrugged. Trusting one lone weirdo to rat out another lone weirdo seemed questionable, and the Gray Man was reportedly as violent as the Widower, if not worse.

Adam sighed, and shifted onto his side on the sofa. ‘Specificity would have been nice.’

His fingers brushed the back of Ronan’s neck, traced his spine and the visible lines of his tattoo. Ronan closed his eyes. The Gray Man might have been more specific, but Sargent and Cheng hadn’t shared all the details. They’d been busy bringing Jesse Dittley in to dig out the bullet, because Cheng had blanched at the thought and Blue looked too prepared to carve her initials into Ronan’s skin.

‘VVC was responsible for Chimera.’ Adam continued softly. ‘And Noah. Possibly Geminae.’

‘And the Widower.’ Ronan said quietly.

‘Did they know that?’ Adam’s voice was unapologetic. It was kinder, somehow, than pity. ‘Maybe they’re trying to cover their tracks.’

‘Maybe.’ Viridiveste could have killed his parents if they found out about Niall’s powers. ‘But then they’d know to come after me. And-’ He hesitated, lifting a hand. Declan and Matthew, who he hadn’t seen in nearly two years.

Adam mumbled; ‘Hm.’

Ronan felt fingers slide loosely over his shoulder blade as Adam drifted off to sleep. He needed it. As much as getting out of the city might help calm him, sleep was the only thing that would restore his strength. Ronan knew that firsthand.

 

The rain started, muffled tapping on the roof upstairs and on the window panes. Ronan couldn’t hear the thunder, but he could feel it, vibrations through the frame of the house. And Adam’s heartbeat, even and insistent, thrumming through his ribcage. Ronan listened, reverently, and thought about home.

The ghosts were so powerful here that Ronan felt his parents could almost be alive. He imagined he’d brought Adam to meet them, a normal weekend sojourn to the countryside with a friend. His mother first. She’d be in the study, of course, out in the watchtower building, working on something, updating her notes, on the phone, observing her specimens. Ronan would have walked in with Adam and introduced him, easily, affectionately, and she would have turned her attention to him as inquisitively as she did with a new project. She would have smiled and commented on how handsome Adam was, which would have made him amusingly embarrassed, then they would have discussed her genetics studies and her current obsessions, with mutual enthusiasm and stunning intellect.

His father would have come in later, after staying out toying with his machines and scraps, and he would’ve shaken Adam’s hand and sized him up and cheerily invited him to stay for dinner. Niall would have insisted on dragging Adam and Ronan out to see whatever new thing he’d found or built, and appreciatively observed Adam’s analysis of his collection. He would have squeezed Ronan’s shoulder and nodded. Just once.

Niall had never been judgemental, like Declan. Niall had never been controlling.

 _Because he was amoral_ , Declan would say, _because he had no moral compass, like you_.

Behind him, Adam fidgeted in his sleep. Ronan considered, momentarily, what could be in his head. Where could that amount of power have come from?Maybe it was Noah. Maybe it was just Adam. _You were the strongest one_.

But it was Adam’s right to keep it to himself, if that was what he was doing. Ronan almost didn’t care. Whatever Adam was, whatever was part of Adam, Ronan wouldn’t mind.

Adam slept for nearly four hours, until the thunderstorm had engulfed them. Ronan kept the fire going to warm the room. The thunder rolled over them, and it was one particularly violent burst that woke Adam up.

His hand tightened around Ronan’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to sleep so long.’

‘It’s fine.’ Ronan caught his hand, pulled it across to his mouth, and kissed it.

Adam slowly sat up, intermittently lit by knives of lightning outside the window. ‘Did you want to go back?’

‘No. Do you?’

‘I want to stay.’ Adam murmured wistfully. He didn’t point out that he couldn’t. That neither of them could. He bent forwards instead, and kissed the back of Ronan’s neck.

‘We’ll go tomorrow.’ Ronan said heavily.

‘I’ll help Henry dig.’ Adam suggested softly. ‘Might expedite the process.’

‘The closest we got to finding anything was an unmarked diagram.’ Ronan pointed out. ‘Anything they had they buried.’

‘Not well enough. If they made a weapon, we’ll find something.’

‘And if it wasn’t a weapon?’

Ronan couldn’t shake the belief that something unholy had walked into the church that day, and walked itself back out again.

‘If they made it-’ Adam repeated, a low whisper. ‘-we’ll find it.’

He looped his free arm over Ronan’s other shoulder, leaned over him to look through the window. Ronan could feel Adam’s ribs curving over his head. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought - just thought - Adam was teasing him.

‘And if they didn’t make it?’ He growled, trying to breathe around the heartbeat thudding through his throat. Adam sat back.

‘We’ll find whoever did.’

His breath was on the back of Ronan’s ear, then his lips were.

‘Arrogance is a vice, Parrish.’ It was becoming difficult to remember the toxic subject of their conversation.

Adam found sensitive skin just behind his jaw. ‘It’s not arrogance.’

‘Oh?’ Ronan tipped his head, staring unseeingly at the window. There were lips _and_ teeth now.

Adam hummed pleasantly. ’Consider me highly motivated.’

‘Jesus.’ Ronan muttered. ‘ _Christ_.’

 

 

 

It was reckless. It was childish.

 _But it was Ronan_.

Adam had always wanted some things more than he could help. He wanted his father’s affection. He wanted to go to Aglionby. He wanted to graduate and leave the city.

He wanted Ronan as badly as he’d ever wanted anything.

And no matter how many times he reminded himself that it was an uncalculated risk, he couldn’t stop until Ronan was _his_.

They ate a little more, kissed a little more, and Adam went back to sleep in the early hours of the morning when Ronan went to shower.

There was daylight creeping through the window when Adam next rolled over, and a familiar face peering at him across the living room.

He gasped involuntarily and went still.

‘Hello.’ Matthew Lynch said brightly. ‘Are you a friend of Gansey’s?’

‘Uh. Yeah.’

‘Hah. I knew it.’ Matthew’s victorious face brought him slightly closer in appearance to Ronan, who was, Adam realised, nowhere in sight.

Adam straightened, cautiously, and examined his exits before returning his gaze to Ronan’s brother. He was oddly angelic, despite strong resemblance to his sharp-edged relation. Golden ringlets framed a beaming face and round blue eyes, and he gleefully moved a figurine in small circles through the air in front of a mesmerised Chainsaw.

‘I’m Adam.’ Adam extended a hand carefully.

‘Oh.’ Matthew looked pleased. ‘I’m Matthew. Ronan’s my brother.’ His hand was unusually large and warm, but Adam couldn’t distrust the earnest enthusiasm in his expression.

He continued; ‘Did Gansey send you?’

‘No.’ Adam blinked, tried to dispel his fatigue. ‘I was just visiting. Do you know Gansey?’

Ronan hadn’t seen his brothers since he’d left home, had he? Adam was still hazy on the details. Had the Lynches been keeping an eye on Ronan? Did they know about Adam?

‘Oh, no.’ Matthew admitted eagerly. ‘We met him once when Ro moved out. Declan tried to go and get him back. He was nice though.’

There seemed to be an unspoken understanding that Ronan wasn’t quite “nice” in the broadest sense of the word.

’Where is… Ro?’ Adam had already made up his mind to use this nickname on Ronan at the most inconvenient possible moment.

‘He’s out the front with Declan.’ Matthew rolled his eyes. ‘They’re pretending they don’t fight.’

Fight? As in, _fight_ fight? Because two people with Widower powers fighting wasn’t going to be pretty to clean up after.

Adam stood up, uneasily, and padded into the hallway. He didn’t personally want to interrupt the fighting, but if there was the possibility of avoiding it…

The front door was slightly ajar, slammed off the lock, and Adam could hear raised voices from beyond the porch.

‘-an issue if you weren’t so fucking irresponsible!’

‘It’s not a fucking _issue_ , if you stay the _fuck_ out of my _business_!’ That was Ronan, loud and furious.

‘You call that bullshit your business, now? You’re out of your mind!’

‘What the fuck do you care what it is?’

‘Forget it.’ The other voice, obviously Declan’s, was only moderately quieter, but equally as derisive. ‘You never listen!’

‘You never say anything worth listening to!’

Adam edged closer, just enough to look through the narrow gap between the door and the frame without touching either of them.

‘You want to hear something worthwhile? Don’t fuck around with Viridiveste, Ronan. That’s the most worthwhile advice I’ve got.’

Adam could just see Ronan’s back. Declan was opposite him, on the other side of the BMW, the car clearly between them for good reason.

Declan was even more startlingly like Ronan. Like Matthew, he was a bit broader, a bit squarer, but still undeniably a Lynch. He shared Ronan’s sharp blue eyes.

Because Adam couldn’t see Ronan’s face, he had to wait until Ronan answered to gauge his reaction. ‘ _What_ the _fuck_ did you just say?’

Whether or not Declan had intended to provoke him, he still crossed his arms defensively.

‘You heard me.’

‘Did you know?’ Ronan’s tone was lower, venomous. Adam could see one of his hands, curled into a fist. ‘Did. You. _Know_? Did you fucking _know_ who killed them, Declan?’

He started around the front of the car, but Declan stood his ground. ‘I have no idea.’

‘ _Liar_. You goddamn _liar_.’

‘What did you _think_ happened? Did you think there really was some demonic super villain?’ Declan snorted, and threw his hands out. Adam winced automatically. It was like an invitation to be punched… but Ronan didn’t hit him. ‘Dad quit, remember? He only told you guys that stupid story so you’d stay interested in his hero bullshit.’

‘You lying piece of shit.’ Ronan’s voice was shaking. Adam wished he could stop this, wished he could intervene. It wasn’t what Ronan would want, though. It wasn’t going to help either of them.

‘He worked for Viridiveste _for a reason_. They let him do whatever the hell he wanted, they let him turn himself into a fucking mutant, and he _loved_ it. You’re delusional if you think he wasn’t as dodgy as the rest of them.’

‘Why would they kill him, then?’ Ronan’s tone evened out, turned to acid, as he found his footing. ‘Why do _that_?’

Declan’s hesitation was visible even from Adam’s distance. Ronan seized his jacket and shook him roughly, until Declan shoved his hands off. ‘Leave it, Ronan.’

‘ _What_?’

‘Leave it alone.’ Declan was almost pleading. Almost.

Ronan’s reply was bruisingly harsh; ‘It’s too late.’

‘You can _stop_.’

‘They’re coming after me.’ Ronan hissed. ‘They sent Geminae.’

Declan took a step back, catching the top of the car with one hand. ‘No.’

‘Why?’ Ronan took a step forward, snatched another handful of Declan’s jacket. ‘Why are our parents _dead_ , Declan?’

‘Because Dad was just like you.’ Declan confessed, bitterness tangled up with regret. ‘Always poking around where he wasn’t supposed to. He found things out, you know? It’s _his_ fault Mom died.’

There was something in his words - beyond the brutal paternal criticism - that made Ronan release his coat and step back like he’d been punched.

‘They did it?’ Ronan repeated grimly. ‘Viridiveste?’

‘Ronan.’ Declan spoke like he knew he’d already lost the argument. ‘They will _kill_ you. Whatever it is, you won’t heal from it. You’ll _die_.’

Ronan turned away, towards the house, and leaned on the bonnet of the car. He looked miserable, and it _hurt_.

Declan, not content with leaving the argument in a state of semi-truce, said darkly; ‘You shouldn’t have brought him here.’

‘What?’ Ronan looked unamused. ‘Who?’

Declan pointed to the house, at the front door, and Adam fought the urge to shrink back. He couldn’t conceivably see Adam from outside. Ronan scowled.

‘He’s dangerous.’ Declan said, with a surprising lack of malevolence. ‘You don’t know what you’re messing with.’

‘Fuck off.’ Ronan snapped.

‘It’s true.’ Now he was definitely looking straight at Adam. ‘Right?’

Ronan straightened up so fast Declan practically jumped. ‘Shut your fucking mouth, for once.’

Adam pulled the door open.

He only stepped onto the porch, folding his arms over the borrowed sweater to try and keep out some of the cold. Declan seemed to expect him, but Ronan looked startled and angry.

‘Parrish.’ He appeared undecided about where to direct his wrath. ‘Where’s Matthew?’

‘Inside.’ Adam shrugged. ‘He’s pretending you don’t fight.’

Declan assessed him with the cold, unrelenting stare of a predator. Adam was suddenly, oddly glad that he wasn’t the one slipping into a costume and backflipping all across the city. It seemed more than likely that Adam would have died a long time ago, if Declan had been in the vigilante business.

‘You should go.’ Declan said finally. ‘And for fuck’s sake, Ronan, stop sneaking in and moving shit.’

Ronan snorted, and skirted the bonnet to approach the house.

‘I _mean_ it, Ronan.’

‘I’m not sneaking in.’ Ronan sneered. ‘I haven’t been here since you kicked me out, remember?’

‘Don’t be an asshole-’

‘I haven’t been here.’

Both of them stopped, glaring, one frustrated and the other defiant.

‘Whatever. Just… Whatever.’

Ronan collected Adam’s clothes and Chainsaw while Adam waited on the porch, unwilling to venture inside while Declan was fuming. Matthew came out to say goodbye, and unlike his brothers only exhibited the mildest and sweetest of distress upon seeing Ronan ready to leave.

‘I’ll see you.’ He told Adam sadly. ‘Maybe Declan’ll let me visit over Christmas.’

Ronan hugged his little brother before climbing into the BMW, a curiously odd embrace of sharp angles and edges and soft, teddy bear slopes, and Adam’s stomach ached with sympathy.

 

 

 

Ronan stopped at a drive-through on the trip back. His phone had been sitting ignored in the car since the morning before, and Adam checked it while they waited.

’Missed call from Gansey.’ He informed Ronan carefully, watching the pale hand on the steering wheel pause in its incessant motion. ‘A few texts from Henry, too. One from Blue.’

He didn’t read it out, but it made him blush. She’d texted one word, all capitals. _KIDNAPPER_.

Ronan dropped his head back against the seat. ‘I wonder if they can fix the Pig.’

‘It’s Henry.’ Adam replied.

‘Declan’s a liar.’ Ronan said, unexpectedly. Adam blinked a few times before he digested the comment. ‘He always was.’

‘About VVC?’

Ronan shook his head.

‘About your father?’ Adam asked.

He didn’t answer, and the arrival of their food served as a convenient interruption.

‘Your brothers.’ Adam swallowed a mouthful of food that tasted like industrial grease. ‘Are they like you?’

Ronan peeled a dubious piece of lettuce off his meal and dangled it in front of an equally dubious Chainsaw. ‘You saw them.’

‘You know what I mean.’

He frowned, slightly. ‘A bit. Not… not really.’

Intrigued, Adam waited.

‘Matthew heals.’ Ronan explained. ‘And Declan… He’s more… Christ, I don’t know. He picks things up. Notices things. It’s how he twists things around so fucking well.’

‘What does he do?’

Ronan smirked, humourlessly. ‘He’s in politics.’

Adam didn’t bring up what Ronan was avoiding. He was hoping he could avoid it too.

_He’s dangerous._

_You don’t know what you’re messing with._


	28. Resolutions, revolutions, revelations

Ronan didn’t bother to use Henry’s secret elevator.

He didn’t stop before he reached Foxway, either, bypassing Monmouth and Adam’s apartment with the obvious (but unacknowledged) aim of finding out why Gansey had called him.

Two streets away, he parked on the side of the road, and hesitated.

Adam didn’t remark on it. He, too, paused with his hand on the door handle.

‘Psychics.’ He murmured quietly.

Ronan snorted, but didn’t move. ‘That a problem, Parrish?’

Adam stared through the window, at the people ambling past cheerfully on the rain-soaked pavement.

‘Wait in the car, then.’ Ronan said viciously. Adam glanced at him. Back to typical Lynch, aggressive and restless, with a shade of bitterness.

Adam watched Ronan’s jaw work until he understood. He reached over and carefully wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel, well clear of Ronan’s clenching hands.

It took a few moments, but Ronan eventually looked back at him, expression sculpted into perfect disdain.

Adam only waited until he was sure it wasn’t sincere before he leaned across and kissed Ronan’s cheekbone. It wasn’t _that_. Of course it wasn’t _that_.

Ronan drew a breath, sharp, uninhibited. Adam settled back into his seat, and returned his gaze thoughtfully to the window.

What if Noah was there? What if he’d already explained what had happened, and Adam was going to be the last person to know (again)?

Even worse, what if Noah wasn’t there? What if Gansey asked Adam what he’d done, and there was nothing, still nothing, he could say? And what if Noah wasn’t at home, or at Monmouth? What if Adam couldn’t bring him back?

He heard Ronan climb out of the car and slam the door, and hastily copied him, aware that Ronan was able and willing to leave him behind.

They’d come to Foxway from a different direction to Gansey’s usual route, but Adam still figured out where Ronan was headed before he caught up to him.

’Not the fire escape, Ronan, god.’

Ronan might have been glowering, or he might have been blushing, it was difficult to tell as Adam tried to keep up, but either way he managed to shoot Adam a cool smirk across one shoulder.

‘Why can’t we use the _door_?’

‘Because one of Sargent’s witchy family members is always behind it.’ Ronan complained, skirting a few artistically unconventional tables and chairs outside a minuscule cafe before he took a sudden turn into a back alley.

Adam could see the back of Foxway, the same green paint, the same bricks, and the same disorienting curtain selection. The fire escape looked pleasingly more solid than Adam had expected, but he still wasn’t enthusiastic about the prospect of climbing it.

Ronan glanced up the alley and back behind them, and then bounded forward, two steps and one impressive, unnatural jump. He could easily have made it straight onto the fire escape, right over the railing, but he was only catching the bottom of the ladder and dragging it down with his weight.

He stood to one side and showed his teeth. ‘Go on, Parrish. It’s a _small_ building.’

Adam glared at him.

‘You didn’t have a problem with fire escapes on Thursday.’ Ronan reminded him maliciously.

‘Payback’s a bitch, right.’ Adam sighed, and gingerly availed himself of the ladder.

He could manage, with fire escapes. He was perfectly _capable_ , he just didn’t like experiencing the lingering dread that the whole structure was going to fold up and drop him pre-packaged to his death.

One level was fine, even with Ronan rocking the whole thing by pulling the ladder up unnecessarily violently.

Two levels was also fine, so long as Adam stayed away from the railing. He reluctantly looked to Ronan for some sign that he didn’t have to go up any further.

Three and four levels, apparently, did not get them high enough to obtain entry to the building, despite all of the closed but very accessible windows. Adam stood so close to the wall he was practically hugging it.

‘God, Parrish, you’re not going to die.’ Ronan was only half-grinning, and Adam knew this was only half-recompense for abandoning him on the rooftop.

The other half, he suspected, was Ronan finding a way in which wouldn’t immediately parade them in front of all the occupants like carnival freaks.

‘Put that on my gravestone.’ Adam responded grimly. ‘Next to “oh, shit”.’

Ronan laughed, apparently startling himself. It cut away the harshness of his features, made him look thoroughly, distractingly seventeen.

‘I think you’ll find “oh, shit” belongs on mine.’ He touched Adam’s shoulder, very lightly, to nudge him onwards.

‘You don’t have a monopoly on _oh, shit_.’ Adam protested.

‘That’s not what the court will say.’

‘The court of gravestone copyright infringement?’

‘Bound to exist somewhere.’

Adam reached the next floor and stepped onto the stairs, only to find Ronan catching his arm. He nodded to the nearest window. ‘We can get in here.’

‘Oh.’ Adam stepped back down. ‘Thank god.’

Ronan prised the window open with some combination of strength, skill, and luck. It was old-fashioned, sliding up, and he slithered through the low gap rapidly and head-first.

Adam didn’t pause before following, and quickly found himself tangled in the curtains (tangerine) and landing, lopsided and face-down, on the floor.

He could see nothing but orange, and he had a mouthful of his own hair, and the thing that was trapped awkwardly underneath his hip was almost definitely Ronan’s arm.

Ronan, also, had miscalculated the threat posed by the curtains, and his leg was stuck at a 130° angle, but he mercifully retained full vision, and was able to disentangle Adam’s head.

‘You’re a really spiteful person, Lynch.’ Adam grumbled, straightening up with as much dignity as he could muster.

‘Ha.’

‘Where are we?’ Adam lowered his voice. They were in a calmly untidy bedroom, the floor strewn with clothing and bags and bits, and what Adam had just recognised as women’s shoes.

’Don’t know.’ Ronan stood up, shrugging. ‘The number of women living in this building is inconceivable, Parrish.’

 

 

 

‘Not to hyperbolise-’ Colin Greenmantle murmured serenely. ‘- but we are talking about _teenagers_ , are we not?’

He swivelled in his chair to face the other individual in the room. He enjoyed swivelling the leather chair. It had an impressive, unnecessarily high back and lovely, shapely armrests, and the swivel added a charming flair to every conversation.

Except, perhaps, conversations with Laumonier. Despite his talents, Greenmantle often thought Laumonier would be significantly improved with a serious personality recalibration. His singular lack of charisma almost undoubtedly detracted from his usefulness.

‘Powered teenagers.’ Laumonier said flatly.

‘Okay. Yes, true. But teenagers nonetheless. And only two of them are powered, am I correct?’

’Assisted by Allen.’

‘Ah, yes. The prodigal son.’ Greenmantle frowned gently. ‘Such a shame about Mr. Gray.’

He rested his fingers over the edge of his desk and smoothly stood up. ‘His knowledge is a critical threat.’

‘I will endeavour to eliminate him.’ Laumonier responded.

‘Hm.’ Greenmantle activated the console table in the centre of the room, and opened a sealed file. ‘He won’t engage without certainty that he’ll survive. This… Veil situation requires your attention more, I believe.’ He quirked a perfect eyebrow at Laumonier. ‘If you are prepared for another round.’

The comment slid off Laumonier’s impassive face without causing so much as a twitch.

‘Influential men.’ Greenmantle remarked, reading from the console. ‘Richard Gansey the Third. Henry Cheng. Seondeok’s son, I believe. Ronan Lynch… Niall’s boy, of course.’ He sighed.

‘Lynch and the younger Gansey share an apartment in Monmouth.’ Laumonier reported passively. ‘Unlikely he’s involved in the Veil. A delinquent, but not a motivated one.’

Greenmantle nodded, thoughtful, appraising. ‘Shameful waste. If he’s anything like his parents, he would have been a promising candidate for the program.’

‘He is-’ Laumonier replied. ‘-similar to his father.’

‘I can see that.’ Greenmantle pointed out, slightly sharply.

Niall Lynch had been an excellent employee, up to a point. Brilliant, productive, and a risk-taker… It had been disappointing to lose him, and aggravating to lose Aurora’s genius too.

Greenmantle continued. ‘Blue Sargent. Maura Sargent. Why do I believe these are familiar?’

There was no photograph to either name, but Laumonier was an exceptionally reliable resource. If he reported that the art student girl and the palm-reading mother were members of the Veil, then they were members of the Veil.

‘Maura Sargent is Neeve Mullen’s half-sister.’

‘Ah.’ Greenmantle pinched the Sargent profile open and annotated it with sweeping handwriting. That was indeed promising. ‘So the mother and daughter duo have no qualms incapacitating family members.’ He tapped the console delicately. ‘This young lady seems considerably more gifted than her aunt.’

‘Half.’ Laumonier corrected automatically. ‘Aunt.’

‘And the mother?’

‘She keeps to herself.’ Laumonier said, with a tinge of sourness to his tone, if Greenmantle wasn’t very much mistaken. ‘Difficult to determine.’

’And the armour belongs to Henry Cheng.’ There were pictures of the armour. Short videos too. Most of them had already been carefully analysed by the T.I. department for anything valuable. ‘He would not require any external intervention to aid his work, although I admit I am curious about his aims. What role does Gansey the Third play?’

Laumonier, correctly perceiving this was a rhetorical question, neglected to answer.

Greenmantle knew, naturally, that Richard Gansey III had been in Washington with his family. He knew the boy had come into contact with Chimera, and Laumonier had outlined the progression of his obsession with superpowered individuals. As with Cheng, his objectives were intriguing, but this was due more to Greenmantle’s contempt from them than an actual lack of understanding. Richard Gansey III had received all of the grace and wit that individuals like Laumonier didn’t possess, and Greenmantle felt that he could have been (arguably, could still be, with the right persuasion) a valuable contribution to the company.

The younger Gansey was the compass for his group of specialists… he just happened to be pointing in a wildly inconvenient direction.

‘And the other matter?’ Greenmantle felt weary of this issue. He simply wanted Laumonier to go and deal with it, or at the very least, relinquish the responsibility to someone more capable.

‘The boy survived.’ Laumonier answered, without betraying any evidence of how frustrating or humiliating it would _have_ to be to admit it.

‘That’s all?’ Greenmantle muttered, and silently scolded himself for being impetuous. ‘I beg your pardon. The boy survived, as did the Widower, and it seems to have brought us no closer to unmasking the vigilante. This must trouble you.’

He summoned the appropriate documents to the console.

‘There’s a reason that… _individual_ is so protective of Adam Parrish. What does his father do? Uncle? Godfather? Who are are his friends? Was anybody in his life absent from the city fifteen years ago?’

‘He has no friends.’ Laumonier observed, with something almost akin to respect. ‘And no family.’

Greenmantle raised a questioning eyebrow. He didn’t pay Laumonier by the word, and therefore his reticence always seemed unreasonable.

With reluctance, Laumonier added; ‘He goes to school with Gansey and Cheng.’

‘Any association?’

‘Some. Parrish received attention from them after the Widower interventions.’

‘They were chasing the Widower too.’ Greenmantle permitted himself an unamused laugh. ‘The Parrish boy _would_ make a useful asset. Find out more about him, and bring it straight to me.’

 

 

 

It was one of Foxway’s saving graces that Blue Sargent could walk two blocks in any direction and find healthy food.

It was one of Foxway’s incredible drawbacks that she seemed to be the only person in the building willing to eat healthy food.

She had painstakingly gathered a selection of salads and wholemeal, low-carb, vegetarian toasties for Saturday’s lunch, and returned just in time to find Orla homing in on a room full of boys like a guided missile.

Gansey was sitting on Henry’s desk, rolling a replica crystal orb from one palm to the other with pensive seriousness. Ronan was back, slouched in his chair, legs stretched onto another desk, and he’d brought Adam, sitting quietly and neatly in a chair on the other side of the room. Adam was about a foot from where Noah had been sitting barely a week ago, and Blue was struck again by how dissimilar they looked, and how easily they had all missed it… potentially with a little of Noah’s influence.

Adam did look considerably better than he had when she’d last seen him, unconscious on the living room sofa. Somehow, unbelievably, Ronan had actually _helped_.

Orla was leaning on the desk next to Ronan’s legs, smiling down on him benevolently like she was bestowing a regal honour. To his credit, Ronan seemed entirely unfazed.

It was one of Ronan’s saving graces that his effect on Orla seemed to rival Orla’s typical effect on most other people, much to Blue’s glee.

Henry was crouching, frog-like, on his own chair, and appeared to be playing a video game.

Blue left the bags of food on the meeting room table and pushed open the glass door. ‘Okay, Team Productivity, food has again materialised at your feet.’

Gansey was the first one through the door, shooting her an anxious look. He let it swing shut behind him, and whispered unnecessarily; ‘Ronan’s here.’

‘I can see that.’ She pointed him into a chair firmly. ‘He’s your closest friend, it’s not the end of the world.’

‘It feels-‘ Adam, waved on by Henry, pushed open the door and held it for him. Gansey finished softly; ‘-like it is.’

Adam politely nodded at Blue and sat. Henry leaned over to investigate the food.

There were a couple of moments of patient silence, until Blue released an exasperated noise. ‘What is she _doing_? Holding him _down_?’

Henry and Gansey both looked into the office swiftly to ascertain if Blue was serious, but Adam wisely recognised her sarcasm as absolute and didn’t react.

He asked, gently; ‘What did you cover in Phil yesterday?’

‘Recasting Rousseau in a modern light.’ Henry reported affably, looking away from Ronan’s interaction with Orla. ‘Not entirely convinced we required it, but alas, I do not design the curriculum.’

‘He’s only saying that because he doesn’t like Rousseau.’ Gansey interjected, shifting forwards.

‘ _Pish_.’ Henry Cheng protested, both his choice of noise and his delivery eliciting general amusement. ‘My personal feelings do not impair my judgement, good sir.’

‘Sorry.’ Gansey smiled charmingly. ‘He’s quite right, anyway. You didn’t miss much.’

Orla flounced into the room sullenly, sneered at Blue’s food, and flounced out the other door with a haughty glare. Blue grinned at Ronan as he slowly sauntered in and slumped into a chair. ‘I love your work.’

Ronan gave her a lethargic mock salute. ‘What can I say? I’m an artist.’

‘We told everyone you had witnessed a terrible crime and were being interviewed by the police.’ Henry explained to Adam cheerfully. ‘Everyone believed it because you look like you have witnessed many terrible crimes.’

Adam paused, considered this lie, and nodded approvingly. ‘Thank you. You didn’t have to say-’

‘ _Pish_.’ Henry repeated. Gansey agreed.

‘It’s the only day you’ve missed this year.’ He pointed out. ‘You’ve more than earned it. You’re the only one in school who managed to sit through all of Gramercy’s classes without passing out due to boredom.’

‘And we have only a week left.’ Henry added. ‘School is merely a tolerance exercise at this point.’

There was a lull in the conversation as they each found food to their liking. Neither Gansey or Ronan seemed likely to open the proceedings of the betrayed friend convention, and, as Blue was already up to her eyeballs in familial drama, she felt reasonably justified in sighing and dropping her toastie with an emphatic thud.

Adam was the only one even slightly moved by this display, and he promptly blushed and looked at his hands.

‘What’s the situation?’ Ronan asked abruptly, glancing from Blue, to Gansey, to Henry. ‘Any sign of Whelk?’

’Nope.’ Henry looked thoughtful. ‘Not a whisper. Been observing all possible exit avenues from the tunnels, and nothing as yet.’

Adam frowned at the table.

‘Geminae?’ Ronan asked.

‘Still alive, unfortunately.’Henry wiped his hands on a serviette. ‘Have caught him on the odd camera, but he’s a difficult man to track… my computer does not appreciate paradoxes.’

Ronan scowled, a vicious and determined thing. ‘Tell me when you find him.’

‘No.’ Gansey interrupted. ‘No. Jesus, Ronan.’

Ronan stood up, chair scraping back. Blue stood up too. She couldn’t even imagine Ronan as a threat. She trusted him, and she knew for a fact that he wouldn’t lay a finger on anyone in that room, but things said in anger couldn’t be taken back.

‘He tried to _kill_ us.’ Ronan was showing teeth, a dog ready for the attack. ‘He drove a car into the Pig, goddammit, he-’ He started to gesture and faltered. ‘-he went into Cheng’s _house_. He went after Sargent’s _mother_.’

Blue felt a spike of adrenaline at the mere mention of the incident. Yes, maybe she fell a little more on Ronan’s side of the argument than Gansey’s when it came to this. Without the Gray Man’s intervention, without Ronan, she could have lost the two most precious people in her life in a single afternoon.

Pain spread across Gansey’s features. ‘I’m aware of that, Ronan. It doesn’t mean I want you to hunt him down.’

‘What you want doesn’t decide what I do.’ Ronan replied hotly.

Gansey opened his mouth to reply, but Adam spoke, quietly, from where he’d shrunk into his chair. ‘What about his motives?’

A startled pause preceded Henry’s mild shrug. ‘The Gray Man indicated he was sent by Viridiveste. Presumably to ensure we desist in the search through their files.’

‘And you just trust him?’ Ronan scowled again.

‘My mother says he’s trustworthy.’ Blue noted.

‘And you just trust _her_?’

She felt blood rush her cheeks, a sharp indication of anger rather than embarrassment. ‘Watch yourself, Lynch.’

Adam took a breath, low and strained. ‘Geminae doesn’t know about the Widower. He went after the Veil and the Widower separately, but simultaneously. If the corporation is covering something up, they’re acting fast to do it.’

‘You think they’re covering up more than what happened to Whelk and… Noah?’ Gansey asked, tone softened by sympathy.

Adam didn’t flinch, but he didn’t look up. Blue suppressed a shiver. She’d been avoiding the thought of poor Noah all morning, and all of yesterday. It upset her that he wasn’t just there, with them, and she wasn’t prepared to consider why he might not be.

‘If they are, we might have a limited window to uncover it.’ Adam continued evenly. ‘I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Chimera, Noah, Geminae and the Gray Man all have connections to VVC. Have you found anything else on the system?’

Ronan was looking away, now, still upright but slowly, painstakingly, reducing his fury.

’Nothing helpful.’ Henry answered. ‘The scraps we have found, as you saw, are inconclusive at best. I can only imagine that anything more pertinent to our interests is contained on an internal system.’

Gansey sighed and rubbed his lip.

‘What about the Gray Man?’ Adam asked patiently. ‘Could he provide any more information?’

‘He’s reluctant to share.’ Gansey admitted. ‘I think the extent of his advice is to stop digging.’

Ronan kicked a chair.

Adam nodded, carefully. He glanced at Ronan, and if Blue hadn’t already been glaring at him she might have missed the way Ronan glanced back, momentarily, a dark look that was either a question or an accusation.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine why the Widower might have been concerned with Adam’s life before Gansey had befriended him. If intensity was currency, which around Gansey it practically was, Ronan and Adam were easily matched in wealth.

‘Adam.’ Gansey said apologetically. ‘Is Noah around?’

Adam looked at Gansey, briefly, then he tilted his head slightly and stared at the ceiling, a curious posture reminiscent of someone catching the faintest waft of a refrain through an open window. ‘No.’

‘And… in the tunnel… did Chimera…?’

‘Yes.’ Adam re-adjusted into a faintly listless position. ‘He’s dead.’

There was a speechless silence. Blue noticed that Gansey worked very hard to control his expression, only the movement of his throat suggesting any alarm at all, and that Ronan ignored the statement completely.

‘What happened?’

Adam picked at a mangled piece of melted kale on his plate. ‘I killed him.’

 

 

 

Ronan was sitting on the fire escape. Gansey couldn’t tell if he was more relieved or disappointed to find him alone. He’d almost expected Orla to be out here, but it was equally likely that Adam’s attention would be more satisfying to her than battling Ronan’s resolve.

Gansey sat on the other side of the windowsill and looked across at the building on the other side of the alley. A matching fire escape and heavily (and unusually consistently) curtained windows made Gansey feel like this whole situation was taking place in some kind of surreal mirror universe.

‘I’m sorry I left you.’ He said heavily. ‘If I could go back-’

Ronan scoffed. ‘Honestly, I’m grateful you didn’t try to run me over.’

That stung, slightly, even though Gansey knew it was a justifiable mixture of sincerity and betrayal.

‘I don’t want to run your life.’ He picked a bit of rust off the metal beneath him. ‘I just don’t want you to lose it.’

It was more than that, obviously, things were never so simple… but that was the fundamental truth. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was naive. But he just wanted Ronan to be safe.

Ronan glanced up, looking forward resolutely, eyes bright. Gansey wondered if the vigilante thing had been the cause of the rift between him and Declan, too. That would explain something that for Gansey had always been inexplicable.

‘Yeah, well, same.’ He looked down again. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’

There was a moment of silence. Gansey heard the wind whistling through the metal structure around them, an accidental wind chime.

Ronan said; ‘There’s something else.’

 _Oh_. _No_.

He looked up again, still forwards, avoiding eye contact. ‘It’s about Caedes.’


	29. This is not an ideal way to start the honeymoon period

Gansey blew out a breath.

So Caedes had been a cover-up, after all. Caedes was the reason Ronan had been doing this. Fighting crimes and ending lives.

‘You could have told me.’ Gansey murmured, plaintively. It wasn’t true. It might have been true, it could have been true.

Ronan, for once, let an opportunity for derision slide. He shifted uncomfortably. ‘I started… before. Before we met.’

Gansey frowned. The idea of Ronan being like this before they’d met bothered him, sat like a weight on his shoulders. The idea that Ronan had always been more than Gansey had known… or was it less? It made Ronan seem more unfamiliar than Gansey liked, or felt he could reasonably cope with at that moment.

‘I thought the Widower only returned-’

‘I wasn’t doing… that.’ Ronan curled his lip. ’I was just… _hunting_.’

 _Hunting for the Demon_.

Nearly eight years of research and Gansey had never heard of the Demon. A person who could theoretically rot the blood out of victims? Turn it to liquid ash? It did sound more like a weapon to Gansey. A weapon, very possibly, designed and wielded by a minion of Viridiveste.

‘Do you believe Declan?’

Ronan clenched a fist automatically. ’No.’

‘It _could_ be VVC.’ Gansey noted dubiously.

‘Easily. But Declan’s not likely to just admit it.’

Sometimes, Ronan could be astoundingly pig-headed. Gansey sighed. ‘He hardly _just_ admitted it. It’s been two years, and he didn’t even willingly _tell_ you anything.’

‘You don’t know him.’ Ronan shook his head grimly. ‘He plays games.’

For the thousandth time, like a record playing over and over again, resetting every time Gansey paused to think, he was freshly struck by the revelation that Ronan was the Widower. The vigilante. A killer, avenger, superpowered antihero.

It wasn’t even the powers that carved out an unpleasant space in Gansey’s stomach, and it wasn’t only the killing. It was the disparity between everything he thought he knew about Ronan and the way it suddenly, by necessity, had to be different. It wasn’t Ronan, plus superpowers, plus killing, as difficult as that would be in itself.

It was Ronan, and powers, and killing. And his family’s secrets. Niall Lynch as the original Widower, somehow genetically modified to obtain powers, and Ronan having inherited these from him. It was Declan and Matthew, and the things they knew and that Declan, at least, attempted to bury. It was Caedes and the death of the Lynches, and a vendetta that drove Ronan towards villainy or death or both. It was the murder of Joseph Kavinsky, and the alliance with the Veil. It was the loyalty to Adam Parrish, which startled Gansey anew, in its unexpected intensity.

‘Thank you.’ Gansey said softly. Ronan glanced over, wary but curious. Gansey nodded to the Foxway window. ‘For always watching their backs out there.’

The Widower had defended Adam and Blue against Chimera until he’d dropped. Literally. Another horrible thing to imagine, now with Ronan stamped in place of the stranger who had been, by all accounts, thoroughly stomped.

‘You ever think I wouldn’t?’ Ronan asked tautly.

‘No.’ Gansey confessed warmly. ‘Not once.’

‘They can watch their own backs.’ Ronan grumbled begrudgingly. ‘Pretty good in a fight. Unlike you.’

Gansey snorted.

He spent a few minutes adjusting his incredibly uncomfortable sitting position, before posing the next, nerve-wracking question. ‘Did Adam mention Noah to you?’

Ronan shook his head slowly.

‘I have no idea what happened.’ Gansey admitted anxiously. ‘I’m worried about him.’

‘You’re always worried about him.’ Ronan snapped, and Gansey winced. Ronan seemed to sustain jealousy at the oddest of moments. And Ronan was the one who had taken off without any warning, with Adam in tow. Unless Adam had been the one towing Ronan, but that concept was many shades of unlikely.

‘I worry about you, too.’ Gansey rolled his eyes. ‘You don’t like that either.’

Ronan made a scornful noise.

‘Exactly.’

’The Veil still in the shit for losing Chimera?’ He asked coolly.

‘Yes.’ Gansey nudged his glasses thoughtfully. ‘Someone identified him from the footage, and now there’s uproar that he wasn’t killed in Washington and the general theory that the Secret Service conspired to hide him. Now they’re asking for legislation proposals to be reviewed.’

This, more than anything, was Gansey’s field of expertise.

The Veil had only really come about through Henry’s persuasion and Gansey’s distraction. Before Henry, he had never supported the idea of a self-policing force of superpowered individuals. He’d generally held the view that there had to be some kind of societal, legal integration for people with powers, so that the system stayed fair and equal for everyone, but things had changed with Leech.

Nobody had been able to stop her, and neither the government, nor the law, and not even the military were equipped to even try. 

Gansey had fallen back on something more fundamental to his identity than his love of reason and diplomacy. _Faith_. Faith in individuals like Henry and Blue, who had both been prepared to put their powers on show and their lives at risk in order to confront and subdue Leech.

Power without accountability was incredibly dangerous, Gansey knew that. But he was also reasonably confident that most people, even if they weren’t up to their ears in altruistic sentiment, weren’t actively trying to hurt others. And he understood that bureaucracy made things painful.

How many people were out there, living with undisclosed powers? How many people like Blue and Maura and Vine received those powers as a kind of familial birthright? How many had, like Niall Lynch and Barrington Whelk, obtained them through dangerous and undoubtedly illegal experimentation? Or, like Noah Czerny, had them forced onto him while everything else was snatched away?

How many people had Viridiveste alone changed?

Where would Ronan or Adam fall, on a spectrum of naturally to unnaturally gained powers?

Ronan was shaking his head again, smiling sardonically.

He’d never relinquish control, Gansey realised. He was a criminal under human laws, and he’d only be something worse under new laws. A national, even a global threat. And it wouldn’t stop him. He’d never back down.

Gansey had known, rationally, that it was the same with Blue and Henry. Blue hadn’t asked for her powers, or asked for an opportunity to use them, but she argued that she had an obligation. She was powerful, other people were not, and therefore she could and should protect them when they couldn’t protect themselves.

Henry built his strength. Possibly his incredible intelligence could be considered a power, perhaps it could be deemed threatening even without his armour. He didn’t have the same ethical motivations as Blue, or the same personal motivations as Ronan, but he didn’t mean anyone inadvertent harm. He was another unique set of variables in his own right.

Probably the legislation wouldn’t be accepted. It would be too hard-line, or not hard-line enough, it would be too broad or too narrow. It would be impossible to enforce.

Gansey wasn’t sure he wanted it to be enforced. He hated the idea of people marching into the lives of his friends and demanding that they abide by laws designed by people who felt threatened by them.

‘There’s no evidence Chimera has been controlled.’ Gansey continued quietly. ‘I suppose there never will be.’

‘So they’ll never stop expecting him to come back.’ Ronan smirked. ‘Classic.’

‘He survived a missile.’ Gansey looked at the sliver of sky visible from the fire escape, clouding over again. ‘We don’t even know what Adam did, or if it’s possible he might have survived _that_. I just wish-’ He cut off abruptly, as Ronan raised a hand. ‘What?’

Ronan leaned forwards, still sitting, tilting his head like Chainsaw whenever she thought she heard the fridge open.

Gansey held his breath. He’d seen this once or twice before, normally when Ronan heard the pizza delivery guy arrive at Monmouth. Pizza didn’t usually make Ronan look so tense.

Ronan pulled his feet back from the edge of the fire escape and rolled onto them into a crouch, an unexpectedly elastic movement.

He pointed to the window. ‘Get the others.’

‘What is it?’

‘Get Cheng.’ Ronan bounced onto the railing in one motion and then jumped, forcing Gansey’s heart into a frenetic palpitation of _God, oh dear God, what the shit._

There was the sound of air slicing around an object and Ronan swung down the alley and landed on the rooftop a few buildings away.

He moved fast, _Jesus Christ_ , that was fast, that was incredible, he’d already disappeared from sight.

Gansey pushed open the window shakily and fell through.

 

 

 

The site was nine blocks away. Ronan hadn’t even heard anything. He’d only felt the faintest tremor, dampened by his distance from the ground.

It could have been nothing. Someone demolishing a building, maybe. Even an accident involving a truck or a bus.

But Gansey had literally just said that Chimera could theoretically still be alive unless Parrish figured out what he’d done.

Ronan didn’t _believe_ it. He’d been in the tunnel, felt it when Chimera vanished, taking all his hair-raising creepiness with him. Whelk was dead.

But he had to be sure.

There was no train this time. No police or ambulances yet. Just fire, broken glass spread across the street, and people screaming.

Ronan hesitated on the balcony of the office building across the street, surrounded by suit clad strangers crying and pointing. He didn’t have his suit. He didn’t have any kind of disguise at all. It wouldn’t have stopped him, probably. The only thing that had was the overturned rust-bucket Wrangler fifteen metres below him.

Ronan wasn’t good with people, but he knew cars well enough to recognise this one. A Foxway regular. Someone else who wouldn’t use Cheng’s fun-ride into darkness.

It was Jesse Dittley’s car.

 

The building across the road, what must have been a small cafe under three residential floors, had taken the worst of the explosion. There were bodies, God, there were bodies.

He could taste the smoke on his tongue. The fire had already climbed into the roof, and the windows had broken, from the blast or from the heat, flames licking out from gaping black spaces.

It was louder than expected. The building fires Ronan had encountered always were, horrifically, but the explosion (a gas leak, maybe? A bomb?) had rendered most survivors in the vicinity in a semi-state of deafness and hysteria, only adding to the volume.

The bricks were blistering and turning black, and most chunks of debris scattered in a three hundred metre radius were still burning, including one of the rear tires of the Wrangler.

Ronan managed to get out of the office building fairly quickly, even though he had to resort to taking the internal emergency stairs. The smell of burnt rubber and scorched flesh smothered the street. It was barely possible to get within a dozen yards of the fire without being hit by a wall of heat. Ronan helped the people trying, pulling away a few curled up figures who might have already been dead. He could get closer, despite the way it seared his skin, but it seemed like a lost cause. Whatever had been in the building was gone. Probably never had a hope of getting out.

 _Jesus Christ, Dittley_.

Blue was going to heartbroken. She adored Dittley. She was the one who had brought him into the Veil after Dittley had helped them with Leech.

Ronan abandoned the fire. He let the person behind him - some desperate guy in a motorcycle jacket - pull him back further, until they could both collapse on hot bitumen and lay there, struggling to breathe and think, a little distance between Dittley’s Jeep and the smashed Volkswagen which had been parked next to it.

The Wrangler tire had burned out, melted onto the rim and down the frame of the car. Through broken windows and wavering heat, Ronan thought he saw Dittley’s massive bulk inside.

He staggered upright, ignored the skin attempting to peel itself off his hands and forearms, and found the driver’s side door.

It was too badly dented to open, so Ronan ripped it off completely.

It was definitely Dittley. He occupied most of the interior, upside down but held into his seat by the belt strapped across his substantial torso. Ronan clawed his way inside, and tried to loosen the seatbelt, but something landed behind him with a thump and a metal hand grabbed his leg.

‘Get out of here.’ Ironbee’s mask loomed over the vehicle, framed by the burning building.

‘Dittley- ’

‘Go, anarchist.’

Ronan shuffled back out of the car. He could hear sirens cutting through the din, and feel the sting of his arms and face. He wouldn’t usually listen to Cheng, but this was about to be a worse goddamned mess than Chimera, and he needed to avoid the police.

This wasn’t just going to be a superpowered nut with a grudge. This was going to be terrorism, and national panic, and a hell of a lot of blame. If Gansey thought the government was baying for blood already, this could only make it worse. Even if it was presumed to be an accident, accidental explosions that caused deaths were preventable, and the Veil, once again, hadn’t managed much in the way of prevention.

Cheng had managed to drag Dittley free of the wreckage by the time Ronan had stumbled back into the office building, dodging around gawkers and weepers, trying to find a safe exit. He didn’t look burned, but there was plenty of blood, and he wasn’t moving.

It was inconceivable that something like this could have happened to Dittley by coincidence. This was Geminae, or another weapon belonging to Viridiveste. It was Caedes, but this time they’d engineered an actual explosion.

 

 

 

Ronan reached Foxway in a matter of minutes. Pythia had gathered in the living room, and Blue was standing by the window, motionless except for the trembling of one hand.

Cheng had already relayed the information back to them. Gansey was in a state of shock. Calla looked pissed. Persephone murmured “Oh dear” at irregular intervals and stared sightlessly at the wall.

Blue was furious. She didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge when Gansey took her hand.

‘Ronan.’ Gansey sounded, thankfully, relieved to see him. ‘Henry put him in an ambulance.’

’Tell Cheng he should come back.’ Ronan demanded. ‘There’s probably something still out there.’

‘You think it was deliberate?’ Gansey asked, but he didn’t sound even slightly doubtful.

‘Of course it was.’ Blue hissed, hitting the window frame. ‘It’s _Jesse_.’

‘Why didn’t we see it?’ Calla snapped angrily. ‘How could we have missed this?’

‘We don’t see everything.’ Maura answered.

‘He’s one of _ours_.’

Persephone murmured; ‘Oh dear.’

‘Maybe it was the other one.’ Calla nodded suspiciously at Ronan. ‘The loud one. Maybe he was interfering.’

Ronan was glowering before he could stop himself. ‘ _What_?’

‘It wasn’t Adam.’ Maura said wearily. ‘You know that. There are some things we simply cannot see.’

‘Like _what_?’ Blue muttered. ‘Because I’m _starting_ to think a _list_ would be pretty _helpful_.’

‘Like people who are so singleminded they don’t see the consequences of their actions.’ Maura reprimanded sharply. ‘Like people who clear their minds in order to achieve their objectives. Like people who worry about all the options so much that defining the actual outcome is impossible.’

Ronan thought the last comment might have been describing Gansey, who frowned miserably at the escalating argument.

Persephone interjected softly, glancing at Ronan; ‘Like things which can no longer experience intention.’

Ronan scowled defensively, but he didn’t understand what she meant… at least not until Maura shushed her anxiously.

‘Do you see Viridiveste?’ He leaned over the back of the sofa, fingers curling automatically towards fists. ‘Do you see Geminae? Trying to kill us?’

‘Ronan, calm down.’ Gansey said.

‘The answer to _your_ question is no.’ Maura replied. ‘We can’t see who or what killed your parents.’

Ronan pulled back, insides jagged with anger and disappointment. They’d always known he’d been looking, and they’d never told him, but it turned out they had nothing to tell him anyway. Now VVC was closing in on the Veil, and there was still no way to see the truth.

‘It’s dark.’ Persephone added, having returned to her absent stare into nothingness. ‘It carries the dark. Into everything it touches.’

 

Ronan was fuming and aching when Cheng came back, but so was Blue. The suit was blackened and most of the paint had peeled off, and Cheng was disagreeably sweaty when he finally stepped out.

‘Thirteen casualties, so far.’ It was possibly the first time Ronan had ever heard him sound bitter. ‘About nine injured, and at least six people who are not accounted for.’

‘What was it?’ Gansey asked.

‘Definitely an explosive. Portable, small. Probably a chemical accelerant in a device attached to a timer. Taken into the shop and left there, I expect.’

‘Jesse?’ Blue said emphatically.

‘Hospital.’ Cheng shrugged. ‘He was alive, that is about all I can tell you.’

Ronan strongly suspected that was all Cheng was _going_ to tell her. His actual knowledge was probably more extensive. There was, Ronan knew, a bioscanner in the suit.

‘Why was he there?’ Ronan growled impatiently. ‘What was he doing?’

‘He lived there.’ Cheng answered. ‘In one of the apartments above. I assume he was leaving when the explosion occurred. Or possibly arriving.’

‘So absolutely not random.’ Gansey noted sadly.

‘I cannot guarantee it, but I believe he was targeted.’ Cheng tossed his back plate to the floor with uncharacteristic vitriol, and slumped onto the couch. ‘I’m sorry, President, but Lynch may be right. The only way to deter whoever is responsible for these attacks is to find and eliminate them.’

Gansey didn’t argue. He just looked tired. ‘I would feel better if nobody is on their own from now on.’

Blue frowned, silently, but didn’t release Gansey’s hand. Calla shrugged dismissively. Cheng looked at Ronan.

‘What?’ He said irritably. ‘I don’t need babysitting.’

‘Perhaps you could check on Parrish.’ Cheng suggested, with an attempt at a supplicating tone.

Ronan scowled. Cheng could bloody well check on Adam himself. He’d probably gone back to sleep in the lab.

‘He went to work.’ Blue added, in response to Gansey’s questioning look. ‘He insisted.’

Gansey seemed about as unnerved by this information as Ronan felt. Parrish hadn’t been back to his apartment since Geminae, and he hadn’t been properly alone since the tunnel. As Gansey said, if they didn’t know what he’d done, it was impossible to know what would happen next.

But Gansey couldn’t control Parrish, and Ronan didn’t want to.

 

 

 

Adam was in one of the aisles, restocking. He was crouched next to a trolley full of cereal boxes when a shadow fell across him.

He waited a few seconds before looking up. It wasn’t unlike people to linger nearby, without fully noticing or caring that somebody was there.

It was Ronan, black and white, energy flickering through him like electricity. He looked impatient, savage, and dangerous. 

Adam straightened, slowly, cautiously, with a box of Froot Loops in hand.

‘What happened?’

Ronan didn’t answer. He looked strange, not just vicious but unsettled, too. Adam wondered if he was healing, wondered if he was in pain.

He nodded belligerently at the empty spaces on the shelves, and muttered; ‘Cereal shortage?’

Adam gestured with the Froot Loops. ‘Saturday.’

‘Right.’ Ronan distastefully poked a box of Cap’n Crunch, and Adam noticed the uneven red splotches down his arm, concentrated mostly around his knuckles and his elbow.

There were Lucky Charms at the bottom of Adam’s trolley. He prised one loose and lifted it up carefully. ‘These are probably more to your taste.’

Ronan snorted, but leaned closer to take them, and Adam frowned. ‘Is that smoke?’

‘What else?’ Ronan replied.

The acrid scent curled off his clothes, and Adam swallowed. _Burns_? He’d only left Foxway two, three hours ago, and Ronan had been _fine_ …

It could have been Orla. Adam tried, for a couple of seconds, to even comprehend that line of thought. He didn’t know whether the scratchy feeling under his skin was defensiveness or protectiveness, but either way, it wasn’t particularly pleasant.

Someone else entered the far end of the aisle, and loitered, indecisively, near the Cheerios.

Adam didn’t ask. He didn’t say anything else. He just watched Ronan step backwards, lift the cereal box in cold acknowledgement, and stalk away down the aisle.

 

He knew Ronan would have visited the apartment by the time he got home. He knew Ronan would have checked it.

It was still a relief to push open the door and find the television on, and Ronan sitting on the countertop eating a bowl of Lucky Charms. The contents of the apartment were still spread haphazardly across the floor, the way Geminae had left it, but it looked like nobody had bothered to even try the door in the time Adam had been gone.

‘This place is a shitfight.’ Ronan observed, crunching unflatteringly. ‘And your door was unlocked.’

Adam closed the door, locked it, and set about collecting his belongings.

Ronan still smelled like smoke. Adam had decided it definitely wasn’t Orla. It was possible, but it wasn’t logical. His only concern now was that it might have involved Foxway, and that the burns, although subsiding, still seemed to be causing Ronan discomfort. Probably some first aid was in order, but Adam didn’t have anything for burns. He only had makeshift treatments for bruises and cuts, really, and minimal fractures at worst.

The bedroom was equally chaotic, and it took him a frantic search to ensure that all of his textbooks, though a little battered, were still intact. He heard Ronan go into the bathroom while he was refolding his clothes and putting them away, and left track pants and a sweater on the bed, in case Ronan wanted to shed the events of the day entirely.

He must have gotten milk from the shop as well, because there was an extra carton in the fridge next to Adam’s practically empty one. There was a steak, carefully wrapped, in the freezer, and frozen vegetables, but Adam was tired, and reluctant, and there was something unbidden hesitating behind his breastbone, fraying his nerves.

Ronan could stay. Ronan _could_ stay. Ronan could _stay_.

Adam had borrowed one of the spare uniform shirts from work. He was in dire need of some clean clothes… in fact, the whole apartment probably needed cleaning, and here he was in the middle of it, eating Ronan’s Lucky Charms for dinner in a painfully red shirt and Ronan’s jeans. He’d missed school and work yesterday, and Healey had made it clear that one more abandoned shift and Adam was out. There were enough people around these parts desperate for work to make ditching Adam viable, even sensible.

In a week, the newspaper archiving job was arranged to start, and Adam could fit that in around anything, but it wouldn’t pay as well. He couldn’t afford the apartment without working at the supermarket.

Without Noah, he didn’t even like it here.

But it was all he had, and it didn’t feel like much.

Ronan emerged, and Adam pointed at the bedroom door mutely with a spoon, which earned him a very suspicious glare in response.

Ronan in black jeans and black shirts was one thing. Ronan in the Widower suit was something else. But Ronan in inches too short navy track pants and a sweater with the sleeves rolled up was an entirely different creature. He reminded Adam of an angry racoon in a bunny costume.

It didn’t seem to bother him. He topped up his bowl of cereal and retreated to Adam’s sofa wordlessly.

‘Where’s Chainsaw?’ Adam queried, moving to the other end of the sofa.

Ronan looked mildly surprised, then irritated. ‘Foxway. Gansey better remember to feed her.’

There was discolouration along his jaw, too, visible in the flickering light from the television.

They ate in silence, and Adam waited. He needed to be more careful, less impulsive. The adventure to the airstrip had been a surreal, exhausted dream, but they were back in the city, and Ronan was back to fighting his monsters, and Adam was back to hacking away at the edges of his existence like a miner with a life sentence.

When Ronan finally looked at him, it was meant to be a subtle thing. A glance, perhaps, to check his general surroundings. It still felt like an excuse, to Adam, a justification. A reason for leaning across and touching his fingers to Ronan’s arm.

‘Dittley’s down.’ Ronan said roughly. ‘An explosion. He probably won’t make it.’

Adam felt the words hit him, align themselves, and the slow sweep of understanding. ‘Viridiveste.’

Ronan didn’t respond.

He rocked back, but left his fingers on Ronan’s skin, still warm despite the cold night and the probably freezing shower. ‘They have to be stopped.’

It was too fast. Ronan couldn’t go on the attack now, while they knew so little, while he was underprepared and still emotional.

‘I know.’

That was why he was staying. He was staying because… because Adam was the weak link. Despite Chimera, despite losing Noah, he couldn’t defend himself. Ronan had to be here to protect him… Ronan felt he had to stay.

Adam withdrew his hand too fast, and Ronan stared at him.

‘They’re not getting to you.’ Ronan said lowly. ’Not while I’m alive.’

He tilted over, closing the small gap between them on the sofa, and folded one of Adam’s hands into a loose fist.

‘You remember-’

Adam could feel the warmth of his chest. It all felt so raw, and powerful, like logic distorted around Ronan, like he was the implacable rock in the riverbed that bent the current to his own will.

‘- they _never_ get to _you_.’

Ronan kissed Adam’s cheek, and buried his face in Adam’s neck.


	30. Repress! All! The Emotions!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some relatively chilled children.

Ronan was always so warm. It was more than a little intoxicating, and considerably more efficient than a blanket or a jacket. His weight pushed Adam onto the armrest, and it took a moment’s shuffling before Adam could get his arms free enough to slip them around Ronan’s shoulders. Ronan’s mouth was on his throat, neck, shoulder, and he hooked his hands around Adam’s hips to pull him properly onto the sofa.

He wasn’t staying because he had to. He wasn’t here to babysit. Adam could feel it in Ronan’s shivery grip, the battle between control and desperation in every tentative kiss.

The attack on Dittley had shaken him. Everything to do with Viridiveste had. The closer they got to VVC, the more it dredged up the worst parts of Ronan’s past, and the less clarity he had about it. Adam wanted to help, he _would_ help, if he ever had more than a second to just think.

Now was not the time.

Now was the feel of Ronan’s shoulder blades, his spine, his ribcage, dulled through the sweater but still sharp, still unutterably Ronan.

Now was thumbs pushed into his skin above his hip-bones, fingertips warm against his back where they’d inadvertently caught under the hem of his shirt.

Now was Ronan nudging aside the collar of Adam’s shirt with his nose so he could kiss Adam’s collarbone.

Adam shifted, tangling their legs together, pulling Ronan closer as some of the fervent energy gradually faded. He tugged the sweater impatiently until Ronan raised his head and yielded a proper kiss.

‘ _Adam_.’ Ronan mumbled.

_You remember._

He understood what Ronan was saying. What Ronan was asking him to do.

Ronan’s hands drifted higher, folding around Adam’s ribs under his shirt, and he murmured a brief, probably unintelligible response.

 _They never get to you_.

Adam remembered. He remembered thinking the same damn thing for most of his life. If he couldn’t prevent all the damage, at least he could reduce the worst of it. It sank somewhere behind his lungs that Ronan saw him, recognised who he was. He didn’t know if what he felt was shame or gratefulness, or a muddled combination of both.

Adam moved his hands, grazed Ronan’s bottom lip with his teeth.

He shouldn’t be doing this. Keeping Ronan here, even if Ronan realised that Adam couldn’t separate breathing from trying to protect himself.

Ronan was too ready to take risks. He was too ready to put Adam ahead of his mission. It was like discovering the alchemical formula for creating gold, over and over again, like an unbelievable, illogical, addictive shock to the system. Ronan would choose _him_. Adam needed to stop him, to stop himself, before Ronan did something he’d regret. Before Adam ruined everything for him.

 

 

 

Ronan was going to have to bring his own entertainment to the Parrish apartment.

Adam was more than enough, distracting, amusing, captivating … provided he was _awake_.

He’d persisted longer than Ronan expected. Long enough to make Ronan feel senseless and overwhelmed, long enough to have urgency and adrenaline fluctuate through his veins.

The fear that he would accidentally hurt Adam helped restrain the worst of it, until the steady pressure of Adam’s hands returned him to relative sanity.

When Adam loosened his grip, Ronan carefully pushed up on his hands and gave him space.

‘Got homework, Parrish?’

‘Mm.’ Adam frowned, prodded Ronan’s chin with one finger. ’No.’

‘You must be heartbroken.’ Ronan remarked snidely.

Ah. It was Saturday. Adam had work in the morning. Again.

‘I’ll survive.’ He smiled. ‘You’re enough of a pain in the ass to make up for it.’

‘Cute.’ Ronan poked him lightly. ‘Real cute, Parrish.’

He curled his fingers back into Adam’s ribs, immediately eliciting a low snort of protest.

‘No- No, no - that’s not… fair- Ronan!’

It was difficult not to be swayed by Adam’s ineffectual squirming, especially in addition to his breathless laughter. Eventually he managed to catch Ronan’s shoulder and wilfully pushed him off the sofa.

‘Dammit, Ronan.’ He grumbled accusingly, trying to catch his breath.

Ronan propped himself easily on one elbow, smirked up at him. ‘Not your smartest move, genius.’

‘You’re an ass.’ He rolled his eyes, but reached down to grab Ronan’s wrist anyway. ‘I have to shower.’

He abandoned Ronan to the gloomy living room and the six-channel TV, and came back just to flick water at Ronan’s face.

‘Fuck off.’ Ronan took a half-hearted swipe at him. ‘Your television’s shit.’

He’d changed out of the obnoxious work shirt, and when he settled on the sofa Ronan recognised his jacket. It was the grey one he’d been wearing last weekend, the one he’d wrapped Ronan in to get him home. There were still specks of rust-brown colour down the front, but it looked like Parrish had made an effort to get rid of most of it.

Ronan dug his fingers into the thick fabric anyway. Adam was cold from the shower, surprisingly willing to slouch across Ronan’s legs, and within a few minutes he’d fallen asleep, head on the armrest and Ronan’s arms coiled around him.

There was still nothing on the television, nothing to play music on, nothing to do while Adam slept except listen to him breathe and trace soft patterns on his skin. Ronan thought about carrying him into the bedroom, to at least give him the semblance of a proper night’s sleep in a proper bed, but the risk of waking him wasn’t worth it.

Parrish had already demonstrated that he could sleep anywhere, and Ronan was comfortable, if bored. Adam had tidied up the mess Geminae had left - as much an act of intimidation as an actual search - and the closest thing to Ronan was a library book left open on the counter. He didn’t move to get it. He just watched the least annoying channel he could find and combed Adam’s hair back with his fingers until it dried.

_I’m Adam, by the way. Adam Parrish._

He seemed to draw trouble to himself like a magnet, but maybe that was Ronan’s fault. Noah wasn’t Ronan’s fault, and maybe Gansey would have dug up the truth about Whelk in spite of Ronan’s fight with Chimera. But there wouldn’t have been an incident with Kavinsky without Ronan’s interference. And there wouldn’t have been the threat from Geminae, or whatever else VVC had in its vaults.

His arms tightened convulsively, and his fingers stilled in Adam’s hair.

At what point did someone become enough of a threat to provoke the Demon? That was, of course, making the dangerous assumption that Declan hadn’t been talking out of his ass, and VVC really had been involved. It was making the further assumption that the Demon wasn’t just a weapon wielded by Geminae, or even just an ordinary human.

And he had no idea what his parents might have known… what his father supposedly knew… which would have made him a target.

He knew what Adam knew, or at least, which secret VVC was after.

It was incredible that Adam trusted him. That Adam had ever trusted him. Adam should have gotten the hell away from the Widower as soon as he’d met him, and run further still when he’d made the link between the vigilante and Ronan, but he’d resisted his own predispositions, somehow, for some reason beyond Ronan’s understanding.

It felt like it mattered. It felt momentous, but Ronan didn’t need to know, and he was prepared to stay for as long as Adam let him.

There was a noise behind him, from the kitchen… the sound of pages turning. Ronan froze.

He couldn’t hear anything else. Not a heartbeat. He gradually, carefully, craned his neck, but the rest of the room was empty.

Parrish’s book lay open on the countertop, in the darkness, unstirred by hand or air. Adam slept on, steady, motionless.

Ronan waited, and after a moment another page flicked up in the book and gently glided into place.

He breathed; ‘Noah?’

There was no answer. A second later another page turned, softly, smoothly, in the book. All three of the apartment windows were closed, and the door hardly allowed enough atmospheric ingress to justify this level of creepiness.

Ronan hissed, louder; ’ _Noah_.’

Adam’s heartbeat stuttered under his hand. The book slammed shut, and flung itself off the counter into the kitchen wall.

Adam was, typically, undisturbed by the noise and Ronan’s uneasiness. He tipped his head towards Ronan’s arm, away from the light cast by the television, and serenely continued to sleep. It took a few minutes for Ronan to stop himself staring blindly down at the floor where the book lay, and he turned away.

 

 

 

The energy sapped by healing the minor burns wasn’t enough to propel Ronan into deep sleep, but he dozed, occasionally, and felt appropriately offended when Parrish’s alarm going off in his jacket pocket woke him up.

A moderate consolation was watching Adam rub his face sleepily, and the realisation dawn on him that he was slumped in Ronan’s lap.

‘I didn’t think-’ He sat up, blinking rapidly. ‘You should have pushed me off.’

‘Now you fucking tell me.’ Ronan stretched languidly, smirked, and stood up. ‘Needed a piss for three hours.’

Adam lifted one corner of his mouth unsympathetically. ‘You shouldn’t have had four bowls of cereal.’

‘It’s cereal.’ Ronan complained. ‘It’s supposed to absorb the liquid.’

By the time he’d used the bathroom and changed, Parrish was dressed and eating toast. He’d picked up the fallen book and replaced it on the counter, but he didn’t ask why it had been on the floor. Ronan examined the loaf of bread suspiciously. ‘That’s excessively stale.’

‘It’s toasted.’

‘That’s irrelevant.’

Adam pointed to the shoulder of Ronan’s shirt. ‘That’s excessively bloody.’

‘I’m not going anywhere in _your_ clothing.’ He grimaced.

Adam’s hesitation, when he noticed it, surprised him. Parrish wasn’t exactly renowned for his marvellous fashion sense.

‘Are you going to Foxway?’ Adam asked carefully.

_Oh fuck._

‘Maybe.’ Ronan shrugged.

‘Where are you going?’

He couldn’t lie. But he was starting to feel like he knew where Parrish was heading with this, and it wasn’t going to be good.

‘Nowhere.’ He answered, and Adam’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘You can’t come with me.’ Adam said sharply. If Ronan had been a lesser man, he might have flinched.

‘I wasn’t-’ Ronan scowled. ‘Why the fuck not?’

Adam crossed his arms. ‘I don’t need to be watched, Ronan. I’m not a child.’

‘Because children commonly have the problem of being hunted by assassins.’ He replied snidely.

‘I’m not being hunted.’ Adam snapped. ‘ _You_ are. And I’m going to _work_.’

Ronan tried, momentarily, to clench his jaw tight enough to keep his attitude in, but that actually _stung_. And what kind of magical supermarket did Parrish think he worked in, anyway? Where was the logic in imagining that stubborn-minded persistence would somehow dissuade Geminae from killing him on the street?

‘If I’d known about your death wish, Parrish, I wouldn’t have bothered from the start.’

‘My death wish?’ Adam snorted. ‘I’m not the one who tries to pick a fight with everything that moves.’

‘You’d rather just get it over with quick and easy? Get thrown off another building, maybe.’

Adam went unusually pale, possibly from fear, probably from anger.

’The more you’re around-’ He said grimly. ‘-the more likely they are to figure out you’re the Widower.’

There were a lot of things Ronan wanted to say to that. Like; _Because God forbid there’s more than one person who gives a damn about you_ , or; _the more they know, the safer you are_ , or; _what the fuck, Parrish_?’

But instead there was the horrible realisation that Adam wanted him _gone_.

There were a lot of things he wanted to do, too. Like open the window and throw the stupid fucking television out.

‘Whatever, Parrish. Here’s your fortress of fucking solitude.’

He slammed the door hard enough on the way out to make the wall shudder.

 

 

 

 _Ouch. Ouch. Fucking ouch_.

He was sitting on the building stairs a few minutes later when Adam hurtled past, a blur across the landing below and taking the stairway down two steps at a time.

Ronan heard him stop, or possibly stumble, and then the slower, more measured step of his ascent.

He reappeared on the landing and glanced, cautiously, up at Ronan.

‘Lynch.’

Ronan held his gaze for a second, until Adam apparently decided he wasn’t too sullen to be approached, and climbed the stairs to his feet.

‘What?’ It was cold, hard, and nowhere near as threatening as Ronan had intended.

Adam seemed to agree, looking undaunted. ’Don’t- Don’t go.’ He sighed. ‘That’s not- It’s not what I meant.’

‘What you meant.’ Ronan echoed darkly. He wanted to stay, God, he wanted to stay, but he couldn’t _not_ follow Adam, and if Adam was going to hate him for it, he’d have to leave. And stay away. Stay invisible. Back to the beginning again.

Adam closed his eyes, was abruptly more visibly uncomfortable than Ronan had expected. ‘I keep trying to forget. Not… forget…’

Pretend. He was trying to pretend it wouldn’t happen, trying to crush down the inevitable - the _rational_ \- fear.

‘He’s a threat.’ Ronan muttered bitterly.

Parrish looked up, scanning the stairway for people within listening distance. ‘You don’t _have_ to…’

Ronan interrupted, petulant; ‘I don’t _have_ to do anything.’

Adam almost smiled, reflexively checked the time. ‘I need to-’

‘Go on, Parrish.’ Ronan frowned.

Adam stepped backwards, down the stairs. He dug in his pocket and withdrew the apartment keys, and with a touch of uncertainty, dropped them on Ronan’s shoe.

He vanished down the stairway, but Ronan heard him reach the ground floor and leave the building.

 

 

 

Ronan almost certainly followed him to work.

Adam couldn’t think about it.

He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to be Viridiveste’s path to discovering the Widower’s civilian identity. He understood that Geminae was a credible threat.

But the idea that even Ronan thought he had to be monitored for his own safety, like a helpless child, needled him.

Ronan would protect him, and there was something painfully appealing about that, but Adam couldn’t explain it, and things that he couldn’t explain couldn’t be trusted. Even if Ronan stayed, even if he didn’t suddenly realise the absurdity of choosing _Adam_ , it wasn’t as though Adam wanted to be seen as a fragile, useless _victim_.

He didn’t see Ronan on the way to the shop, or while he was there, or on the way back. He briefly assumed that Ronan had actually just left, when he tried the apartment door and found it locked.

There was always the possibility that he’d gotten back before Ronan, but it was almost equivalent to the possibility that Ronan had ditched his keys and gone home. And, perhaps, there was the potential that Gansey had called and Ronan had been needed somewhere more important.

He tapped the door gently, just to ascertain that there was definitely no response, and it opened so quickly he wondered if Ronan had been waiting on the other side.

The thought occurred - unprompted and immediately beaten back into his subconscious - that Ronan Lynch was a hell of a something to come home to.

He mustn’t have slept the previous night, but then, he rarely did, by his own admission, unless he was injured. He was still shockingly awake, engulfed in the kind of intense energy Adam couldn’t even envision from his near-constant state of fatigue.

Bright, too, and edged in light, like the protagonist of a black-and-white movie.

Ronan frowned at him, and from his shoulder, Chainsaw spared Adam a stern, judgemental look. ‘Damn. She thought you were the pizza guy.’

Adam lifted both empty palms in silent apology.

He followed Ronan a few steps into the apartment and closed the door. There was relief attempting to claw up through his insides, and he was struggling to restrain the urge to smile inanely… when he saw the television.

It was big. Unnaturally big. And black edged, instead of the cruddy grey of his own. The picture was so startlingly clear that Adam wasn’t sure his eyes were equipped to process it.

‘What the hell is that?’

‘Don’t get your panties in a twist, Parrish, it’s mine.’

Adam closed his mouth, swallowed, and opened it again, but none of his disbelief had faded, and his frustration only seemed to be increasing.

‘Why is it in _my_ apartment?’

This was revenge. This was Ronan’s revenge for Adam pissing him off in the morning.

‘Because _your_ apartment is fucking tedium town.’ Ronan paused, considerately, to allow Chainsaw to climb off his shoulder, before throwing himself dramatically onto the sofa.

‘Are you going to take it away?’ Adam was anxiously aware that he was becoming shrill.

Ronan snorted. ‘This is a 65-inch tv, Parrish. I’m not carrying it around with me.’

‘How did you even get it in here?’

Adam came close enough just in time to see Ronan wiggle his fingers mockingly where he lay on the sofa. ‘Magic.’

‘I don’t want it here.’

‘You don’t want me here, either, and yet-’ Ronan shrugged.

It took Adam very little time to process the comment, but significantly longer to interpret the meaning. Ronan was obviously still pissed off, but he was hurt, too, and Adam had a lot less experience with causing people pain then he had with causing them anger.

He looked from the television to Ronan, back to the television again.

‘It’s my tv, Parrish. It stays where I stay.’

Ronan was goading him. Adam frowned. He couldn’t think of what to say. He couldn’t think of how to _react_.

He only knew that he wanted to end the argument without admitting defeat, and without doing any more damage to Ronan.

There was one, potentially insane, way of achieving that.

He backed up, until he found the doorframe of the bedroom, and had propped himself safely halfway through with the door in his grip. As soon as Ronan’s gaze flickered back from the television screen to his face (poised in triumph at Adam’s speechlessness) he declared rapidly. ‘You’re lucky you’re pretty, Lynch.’

And slammed the door.


	31. Haunted house? Try subjecting your beloved to their ultimate fear! Guaranteed to seduce!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should really be studying, sleeping, or working, so have some fanfiction.

Adam read until he heard the pizza arrive.

He read until the smell of fresh pepperoni permeated the room.

He kept reading until he’d finished the book, and then, only then, pushed open the door.

Ronan was watching cartoons. He really must have gone to Monmouth, because he was wearing clean clothes, and Foxway too, to get Chainsaw. Maybe he hadn’t followed Adam at all. He didn’t look up when Adam edged past towards the pizza boxes left on the counter.

He should really complain about Ronan bringing food here. Adam couldn’t pay him back, and the neighbours would start thinking Adam had money, and then he’d get broken into… not that they’d steal anything other than Ronan’s obnoxious television.

He took the pizza around to the sofa (there was nothing else to sit on, and he’d have to face Lynch sometime) and Ronan obligingly, if silently, pulled his legs up.

‘What’s this?’ Adam nodded politely at the cartoon.

‘It’s called colour television. Welcome to the future.’

‘Ha.’

The pizza was incredible. Definitely not from the grungy corner place down the block. Adam wondered where Ronan had ordered it from.

His old shitty tv was still over against the wall, wires curled around it like an abandoned and forgotten life form.

Eventually, while Adam was ingesting his sixth piece of pizza, Ronan asked; ‘What are you doing tonight?’

Adam paused with a mouthful of cheese, startled. ‘Nothing. We have- I have school tomorrow.’

‘I’m going out.’ Ronan hadn’t looked at him. Adam couldn’t tell if he was still angry, which seemed like an safe reason to assume he wasn’t.

‘Okay.’ He hadn’t said “I’m going home” or “I’m leaving” which Adam could only imagine implied that he intended to come back. He added, with forced mildness; ‘You’ve got the keys?’

Ronan glanced at him long enough for Adam to catch his eye. ‘Yeah.’ He was all edges. Adam wanted to sink teeth into his lips. ‘You should come.’

Surprise stilled Adam’s hunger. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’ll show you.’

 

 

 

‘Is this necessary?’

Ronan sighed. Adam knew, fundamentally, he _understood_ that Ronan wasn’t in any danger, but the fact that he was balancing on the edge of the rooftop was turning Adam’s guts inside out.

‘I refuse to walk around like a pleb, Parrish, it’s undignified.’

Adam wasn’t horrified by the idea of wrapping his arms around Ronan’s shoulders, but what if he slipped? What if Ronan accidentally dropped him?

He edged closer. ‘How far away is it?’

‘Stay or move your ass.’ Ronan said impatiently.

‘God.’ Adam gingerly stepped onto the wall, one foot between Ronan’s sneakers so they were slotted together, breath faltering and recovering as he clutched the back of Ronan’s hoodie. ‘Goddammit.’

Ronan looped an arm around his waist, solid and unwavering.

‘I’m not going to drop you.’ He teased softly. ‘Not today, anyway.’

Adam opened his mouth to say something scathing and Ronan tipped back.

He didn’t scream, thankfully. He didn’t even cry. But he did spend most of the journey pressing his face into Ronan’s shoulder with grim determination and trying to convince himself that the rush of air around them and the sickening rise and fall of his stomach was an illusion.

‘Hang on.’ Ronan commanded, and let him go. There was a gut-wrenching twist, Adam’s stomach turned, and then Ronan got his feet on something and balanced Adam with both hands.

Adam wouldn’t let go until both his feet were flat on the ground and he’d ensured Ronan was steadying him in place. He could feel the wind buffeting them, and hear the relatively near sounds of traffic, and all of it seemed to be drifting up to them from some unseeable depth.

He couldn’t open his eyes. ‘Shit, Ronan.’

Ronan moved closer, sliding his hands past Adam’s waist until he was bracketing Adam with his arms. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic.’

If Adam could have, he would have responded unfavourably about the hypocrisy of that suggestion.

‘Open your eyes.’

‘Mngh.’

‘Don’t be a baby.’

Adam opened his eyes merely to glare resentfully at Ronan, and immediately wobbled precariously. ‘Shit. Holy shit. Shit.’

‘Language, Parrish.’

He could mostly see Ronan’s face, inches from his, purposefully occupying his vision, but it was impossible not to notice that the metal beam they were standing on was only two feet wide.

Either side was a abrupt drop, so sharp Adam couldn’t fathom how far down it was to the surface of the road.

They were at the pinnacle of the bridge, Ronan trapping Adam between himself and one of the broad, iron pillars curved into a decorative spire. He could see the braces and the joists and the cables sloping down on either side, long web-like networks of steel, and the high-rises of the city spread panoramically below them along either side of the river. The sun was slipping down behind monuments of glass and concrete, turning the west skyline rose-gold and sparkling, and strips of pillowed clouds into streaks of pink and purple.

He was aware, from some long-past elementary school project, that the bridge was nearly 200 metres high. He was also aware that he was probably bruising Ronan’s arms (if that was possible with mere human strength) and shaking like a leaf.

‘Congratulations.’ Ronan’s hands were fixed on the spire, securing him. ‘You haven’t pissed yourself.’

Adam whimpered. ‘Asshole.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He nodded sideways. ‘Sun’s going down.’

Without loosening his grip or moving any other part of his body, Adam turned his head. Most of the buildings were silhouetted in red-hued light, the closest and shortest near the riverbank swathed in shadow and starting to glisten with lights. Randomly distributed expanses of green indicated the city parks, rosy warm streetlights illuminated long stretches of upmarket shops and tourist locations, eclipsed by the ivory towers of the business district and the low-slung glinting mansions of yacht region beyond. Along the river streaks of gold rolled and rippled across the surface of the water and gently rocked the private jetties and luxury boats. On the other bank, there were the more dimly lit apartment buildings and lower, flatter offices of Adam’s half of the city, and further along, sections of floating concrete, long silver and white and grey warehouses, massive storage yards and distant lego-block stacks of shipping containers marked the warehouse district and the docks.

They watched the sun set, and the view in both directions transform into a glowing canvas of silver and white artificial starlight.Adam felt his heart gradually settle into regularity, even as he continued to tremble.

‘It’s pretty.’ He admitted breathlessly.

Ronan grinned, wolfish and triumphant. ‘Like me?’

Adam tried to sigh and only managed an unsteady exhale. ‘I’d push you off, if I could stand up alone.’

‘That’s not very friendly.’ Ronan reprimanded smugly.

‘Since when is friendliness any criterion of yours?’

‘I have very specific standards.’ He was still grinning, still youthful, a glimmer of the Ronan from the airstrip.

‘How unfortunate.’ Adam replied drily.

Several of the towers were lit up with coloured lights. The view was, literally, breathtaking, and Ronan was pressing him back into the spire and kissing him, carefully, keeping him pinned in a little bubble of metal and muscle, and Adam didn’t think he could get enough oxygen to survive.

 

 

 

It was, troublingly, worse getting down, because every time Ronan moved it made Adam uneasily conscious of their situation. He seemed to know that Ronan wouldn’t let him fall, but the fear was instinctive, irrational, and consuming. It was incredible that he’d agreed to it in the first place.

By the time they got back to the apartment, Chainsaw had pecked her way through one of the pizza boxes and gorged herself on toppings.

‘Is that one still good?’ Ronan nodded to the box Adam was prying open appraisingly.

‘Looks alright.’ He shrugged and passed it over.

There was no question of whether or not Ronan was staying the night, and it was somehow more terrifyingly intentional because of that. He kept thinking that Adam had school, reminding himself that he was here trying to keep Adam safe, but the post-adrenaline slump made Adam sleepy and readily amused by Ronan’s attention.

Adam fell asleep on the floor after a fairly lethargic conversation about the biodegradability of Ronan’s webs and whether or not his web-shooting behaviour constituted littering. Ronan maintained that having such a minor criminal offence added to his arrest warrant wasn’t a concern, but Adam persistently argued that even trash that disintegrated within a couple of hours of exposure to air was still trash and Ronan’s actions would establish a social norm.

Ronan watched him for a while, curiously eliciting vicious spikes of emotion from his rampant subconscious, and finally decided to pick him up and move him to the bed.

It didn’t wake him, and he tangled himself comfortably into the blankets after Ronan laid him down.

Ronan proceeded to watch late-night comedy and music videos and tried to play with a reluctant Chainsaw, stirring only when the television screen flickered off and on several times.

There was no associated noise. Ronan had left the door to the bedroom open, and Adam’s breathing fluctuated agreeably in his sleep. There was a dull hum in the kitchen from the refrigerator, and the muffled sound of other people in the building as well as distant vehicles.

Chainsaw fidgeted on the end of the couch, feathers fluffing and turning her into a round, angry ball.

She watched Ronan for any sign of instruction, but didn’t fix her suspicion on any set location in the room, which was unsettling.

The television flickered again. Ronan stood up.

He threaded his way, silently, into Adam’s room, and crouched next to the bed.

It wasn’t strictly necessary (he doubted this was a gas lighting scheme, and Adam wasn’t awake to witness it anyway) but he felt better, half-concealed in the dark and prepared to lunge at any unexpected apparitions.

He saw light patterns glancing off the kitchen counter in the next room from the tv, and heard the soft sounds of the music, but when they flickered out a third time, they stayed gone.

He curled his hands into fists, watched the doorway. _It was just Noah_. Trying to come back. Taking energy.

The lamp on Adam’s dresser sparked suddenly, and the bulb lit up.

Chainsaw flapped into the room, landed on Ronan’s thigh and continued to flap warningly until he soothed her.

Adam mumbled and turned over.

The door moved, so swiftly Ronan couldn’t spring forward to catch it, and slammed shut, making the room shudder and waking Adam. He jerked upright with a reflexive noise of alarm, as the lamp went out and threw the room into darkness.

‘Ronan?’

‘It’s okay.’

‘What’s okay?’ Adam’s fingers found his shoulder. ‘Who’s out there?’

‘No one.’ Ronan stood up, and settled, calmly, on the edge of the bed, keeping Adam behind him.

‘Are you-’ Adam hesitated. There was silence aside from the sound of Chainsaw gently nudging her feathers back into place, and then Ronan felt Adam’s forehead press against his back. He said quietly; ‘I was dreaming.’

Ronan didn’t ask what about.

 

 

 

Gansey had called Ronan six times on Sunday.

Henry assured him that Adam was still getting to and from work intact, so presumably Ronan was having some luck keeping him alive, but it was nevertheless irritating.

At least, he thought it was irritating. He couldn’t help but feel a little relieved that Ronan hadn’t adjusted the status quo in any way just because Gansey had found out he was…

Sure, he was still resisting being helpful, but he didn’t seem to be resisting it any more or less than he ever had, which was, to a degree, satisfying.

Even more reassuringly, Adam showed up for school on Monday morning without any signs of damage to his person, or even to his psyche, which Gansey chose to view as a success.

He inquired, immediately, about Dittley’s condition.

‘Critical but stable.’ Gansey answered sombrely. ‘He’s in a coma.’

Adam frowned, a familiar dent appearing between his eyebrows like a magic trick. ‘Is there any prognosis?’

‘Not for us.’ Gansey shrugged. ‘Henry’s keeping an eye on him through the system, at least.’

‘How’s Blue?’

Gansey opened his mouth, and failed to summon an adequate response, so he settled for emitting a querulous and uneasy noise.

Adam concluded; ‘Not good.’

‘Have you seen Ronan?’ Gansey asked.

‘Yes.’ Adam frowned. ‘I don’t think he’s coming.’

‘Oh, no.’ Gansey shook his head emphatically. ‘No, I just… I hadn’t seen him. And… you know. He fights crime, so.’

Adam nodded slowly. ‘He seemed okay.’

‘Well.’ Gansey sighed. ‘That’s a relief. He never picks up his phone.’

Which, once again, had never been that much of a concern until the sudden likelihood that he could be off somewhere dead or dying.

Gansey wanted to ask about Noah, and about Adam’s own wellbeing, but lacked a method which didn’t seem prying or patronising. He chose to wait for Henry’s exceptional social skills to resolve the issue.

 

Henry materialised just before second period.

‘Yo, President. Parrish. Fun outing last night?’

Adam smiled tightly and didn’t reply. Gansey tried to suppress his curiosity.

‘Any progress on the explosion?’

‘Possible witness description.’ Henry shrugged. ‘Does not help much.’

They wandered into computer science, and Gansey yielded the two neighbouring desks to Adam and Henry and sat opposite them.

Henry leaned over and murmured something and Adam, again, spared him a sharp glance before nodding.

Class consisted mostly of pretending to listen to le Bree’s monotonous lecture and using Henry’s software to research Viridiveste and privately message one another. It started off as a fairly focused conversation that gradually devolved into outlandish conspiracy theories and jokes.

Fifteen minutes from the bell and someone knocked on the classroom door. It was a junior, leaning in to give le Bree a note. Gansey observed this with detached interest, until le Bree read the message and looked up, his eyes fixing on the side of Henry’s head.

 _Shit_.

‘Parrish.’ le Bree said dully. ‘Adam.’

 _Double_ _shit_.

Neither Henry or Adam had noticed the junior coming in, and both looked up in surprise. Gansey thought; _Henry’s illegal software. Henry’s hacking. Adam missed school on Friday. His scholarship. Our criminal activity_.

‘Principal’s office, Parrish. Take your bag.’

Adam’s expression went from numb shock to utterly impassive in a half-second. He stood up, and shut off his computer.

Henry looked as horrified as Gansey felt. He half rose, aimless and getting in Adam’s way, and Adam apologised quietly for tripping past him.

He trudged past le Bree, who’d disinterestedly turned his attention to his own laptop, and followed the junior into the hallway.

Gansey looked at Henry, who regained his seat and looked back, face darkening.

‘What the gosh darn, Three?’

‘Did you-’

Henry lifted an eyebrow.

One of Henry’s spy drones would at least give them an explanation. And if he needed to, Gansey could fix almost anything.

Gansey moved desks so he could watch over Henry’s shoulder. Both of them huddled over a phone was undoubtedly a red flag, but fortunately le Bree had fulfilled his quota of effort for the one class and lapsed into unconcerned silence.

Adam was still in the hallway, the camera swaying subtly from side to side with the motion of his backpack.

‘Sound?’ Gansey queried softly, and Henry dug in his bag for headphones.

He rounded the corner, the view tilting sickeningly, and there was the front office, and the secretary’s trousers, and the bottom half of the word “Principal” inscribed in black and gold lettering on the oak door. 

The door opened, and Gansey blinked a few times at the inappropriateness of finding himself staring intently at Principal Koehn’s pencil skirt and stockings.

She stepped back, and Adam followed her into the room. He must have known Henry had dropped the robot bee on his bag, because he moved the camera in a slow scan as he entered, alighting on the figure in the leather armchair opposite Koehn’s desk.

Henry sat up, headphones held aloft proudly, as Gansey’s hand closed anxiously around his wrist.

‘What?’

Adam had settled into the other armchair, and placed his bag on the floor, but after a moment he nudged it slightly, and the interloper came back into view. Henry made a distressed noise.

The C.E.O. of Viridiveste grinned at them through the flat screen, his gaze fixed somewhere overhead on Adam.

 

 

 

‘Call Ronan.’

‘He doesn’t pick up.’ Henry complained.

‘Call him _until_ he picks up.’

‘Nothing is going to happen to Parrish.’ Henry repeated soothingly. ‘He’s with Koehn. Not to mention that he, you know, _thought_ a man out of existence. He’ll be fine. ’

‘Nothing about this is fine.’ Gansey felt sick. ‘Nothing about this will ever be fine.’

Colin Greenmantle was here. Smirking at Adam like he was food.

Viridiveste knew about the Veil. Knew about Gansey, and Henry, and Blue. Geminae had known enough to target Adam, for whatever reason, and Ronan had known enough to expect it.

There were too many twists, too many secrets. Gansey was struggling to keep his head above water.

They were loitering, uncertainly, in the doorway of the biology lab during break. Henry was still monitoring the situation in the Principal’s office, but Gansey was well beyond his patience threshold for _that_.

He called Ronan, an action more designed to occupy his hands than achieve a response.

‘Greenmantle would not announce his presence if he were planning to hurt a student.’ Henry added, frowning. ‘And he surely would not do his own security work.’

‘What are they saying?’ Gansey hit redial.

‘They are just rambling on about Parrish’s academic history.’

‘Is he still smiling?’

‘Yes. It’s like his face is laminated.’

‘I hate it.’

‘Parrish is fine.’ Henry reported. ‘He’s got it under control.’

Gansey shot him a look of exasperated disbelief, or possibly of disbelieving exasperation. ‘That man probably sent someone to _kill_ him.’

‘And-’ Henry prodded his elbow. ‘- if Lynch sees him here now, what do you _think_ is going to happen?’

Gansey ended the attempted call.

Ronan would kill him. For being him. For being associated with Viridiveste. For being associated with Geminae. For coming anywhere near Adam.

It seemed like an inappropriate time to ask Henry when Ronan and Adam had actually become friends, but the question burned in the periphery of Gansey’s mind.

Instead, he watched Henry’s expression shift towards thoughtful displeasure as he eavesdropped.

‘What are they _saying_?’ He demanded impatiently.

‘Greenmantle’s offering him a job.’

‘A _job_?’

‘An internship. Koehn is encouraging it.’

‘Did he say no? Has he said no? Henry? Tell me he said no.’

Henry pulled the headphones off, pulled Gansey back from the doorway, and closed the door. ‘He agreed.’


	32. I don't think this is what the dating magazine meant by 'compromise'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst. Angst angst angst angst.

‘When does it start?’

‘Tomorrow.’

Gansey sighed, heavily. His hands moved restlessly over the desk in front of him, eyes down, seeing nothing.

‘It’s not a death sentence.’ Henry interjected, painfully brightly.

Gansey’s hands fell onto the desk. Just the word; _death_. It made him want to drag Adam (and Ronan, Henry, Blue…) from the city and hole up somewhere where the world seemed safe.

It seemed to make Adam uncomfortable too. He looked forward, awkwardly, slender fingers tapping his textbook.

‘How long?’ Gansey’s voice sounded strange to his own ears, strained and wounded. Frightened. Didn’t Adam understand what Viridiveste had done to Jesse Dittley? To Noah? To Ronan?

Ronan had sway with Adam… Where the hell _was_ he?

‘Three weeks, to see if I’m employable after graduation.’ Adam explained softly. ‘Starting tomorrow and ending before school comes back.’

‘What about your work?’

‘Around work.’

‘What about Christmas?’

Adam shrugged, resolute. ‘I didn’t have any plans.’

Gansey didn’t know if he could say what he wanted to say. What about us? What about the Veil? What about Geminae? For God’s sake, Adam, what about your _safety_?

Instead, he asked, hoarsely; ‘Why?’

‘There’s no evidence.’ Adam frowned thoughtfully, as though confronted by a particularly intriguing maths problem. ‘Nothing about Dittley, or about Whelk, or the Lynches.’

Gansey leaned forward, catching his attention, holding it with a hint of desperation. ‘It’s not your responsibility-’

‘Not yours, either.’ Adam said sharply. ‘But we both know we need _certainty_.’

Gansey raised his hands again nervously. ‘Noah told us what happened.’

‘Noah’s been dead for ten years.’ Adam replied, words awful despite his flat tone. Gansey swallowed.

‘You don’t believe him?’ Henry queried.

‘It’s not evidence.’

Gansey should never have allowed Adam to get involved - he should never have _wanted_ Adam to be involved. He’d just thought- God, he didn’t know. He’d just thought Adam would be a great member of the Veil.

Some fictional, idealised team that Gansey had mistakenly thought he could put together. The city’s salvation, in the form of a bunch of teenagers. He’d been a fool.

And Adam, _Adam_ , who’d never intentionally done anything to hurt _anyone_ , was about to risk his life because Gansey hadn’t been able to achieve anything remotely _useful_ over the past fortnight.

‘There’s probably an internal system, right?’ Adam asked. ‘Is there a way you can hack it?’

‘With the right tech.’ Henry replied, adding pensively; ‘But there’s an extensive security system just for entry into the building.’

‘That I can get past.’ Adam pointed out.

‘Disruptors.’ Henry elaborated, shaking his head. ‘At entry points. Any device going in gets scanned.’

‘What about inactive devices?’

‘Anything with a metallic signature is picked up on the security X-rays.’

‘Can we shield them somehow?’

Gansey wished they would stop discussing it, like it was a game, like it was a puzzle to be solved. He knew Adam wasn’t stupid, and he knew Henry liked Adam well enough not to want him dead, so the fact that either of them would consider this a plausible course of action was baffling.

‘I’ll work on it.’ Henry leaned back in his chair (as much as he was capable of doing - relaxation was not Henry’s natural state).

Other students were beginning to file into the lonely classroom they were occupying. Gansey said lowly; ‘What if it’s a trap?’

‘I’m not worth trapping.’ Adam answered simply.

‘What if you are the trap?’ Henry suggested. He cleared his throat with obvious (but widely ignored) affectation. ‘For our, ahem… mutual friend?’

Adam straightened up, gazed blankly at the desk in front of the class. ‘Then they could be playing the long game. We don’t know if they’ve identified… our friend. Which means we also don’t know if they know our friend has identified them.’

‘Which means they could be trying to ascertain through _you_ , if our _friend_ , has any idea about _them_ , in spite of their knowledge of _him_.’ Henry’s eyes lit up at the mere prospect of this level of subterfuge.

Gansey grimaced weakly. ‘You’re relying on the assumption that they don’t know _you_ know about _us_.’

Adam nodded, once, passively. ‘I think we can all agree we need to know more, and theorise less.’

Gansey pressed his lips together and looked at his watch.

He was not going to enjoy trying to explain this to Blue.

 

 

 

Gansey offered to drive Adam home, but he refused. It was precautionary, he argued. If Viridiveste were watching him in pursuit of the Widower, and they didn’t realise he was associated with the Veil, there was no point risking them finding out _now_.

It meant no more Foxway. No more hacking, or visiting Monmouth, or car rides.

It meant no more Ronan.

The apartment door was locked. Adam used his keys to get in.

He didn’t know if Ronan was going to be there. He hadn’t mentioned any plans the night before, or in the morning, when he’d petulantly allowed Adam to take the keys and head to school.

Ronan wasn’t really the first thing he noticed, when he walked in, even though he’d been almost dreading the moment.

He’d made the right choice. He was certain. But Ronan was fragile in a number of ways Adam hadn’t been able to fully comprehend, and volatile in many more, and Adam wasn’t convinced of his own ability to translate his intention into words Ronan would accept.

The first thing that really struck him was the absence of the television.

No. Not the absence. The monstrosity had been moved, and Adam’s own television returned to its rightful position against the far wall opposite the door.

It was switched off. The apartment was silent, even though Ronan was sitting on one arm of the sofa, staring down at his stretched legs in uncharacteristically reserved silence.

_He knew._

Adam wondered how. Gansey, probably. A few missed messages, in the current climate of their friendship, would have been enough to displace even Ronan’s implacable hatred of phone calls.

Adam lowered his backpack to the floor. He’d been grateful, even more than usual, that he didn’t have work tonight. He’d hoped he could explain from the beginning, break it to Ronan slowly, try to get him to see how necessary this was… if he didn’t already.

But there was no preamble, no opportunity to carefully direct Ronan’s wrath towards the right recipient. He knew, and Adam had nothing left to say.

‘Henry’s finished with your suit.’ He advised quietly, stepping around the counter. ‘If you want it.’

Ronan looked up, angry, obviously angry, and silently lifted his chin in acknowledgement.

‘Gansey told you, then.’

He sighed, almost inaudibly. ‘Of course.’

Adam couldn’t tell what he was thinking, what he wanted, where the anger was going. He didn’t know how to navigate it, how to try and contain it.

He asked, regretting it instantly; ‘You moved the tv?’

It was cold in the apartment. He leaned against the wall near Ronan’s feet, felt the coolness seep through the fabric of his blazer and his shirt, tried to focus on it, tried to feel less embattled. It was _Ronan_. This wasn’t supposed to be a fight.

‘I’m going.’ Ronan said finally, standing up.

It sounded like defiance, then like regret. Adam thought it might have been half a question, maybe half of a plea, nothing that Ronan was able or willing to fully articulate.

Chainsaw fluttered up off the floor, summoned by instinctive understanding to her beloved’s shoulder.

Adam felt the same instinct, an irrational urge to step in Ronan’s way and demand that he stay, and discuss the issue, and stop hurting. But there wasn’t anything to discuss, and no capacity to offer comfort.

Adam would never change his mind, and Ronan would never accept his decision.

He stopped at the door.

‘Gansey said-’ He hesitated. ‘- it would help.’

Adam pressed his head back into the wall, and closed his eyes. _Stay_. ‘Ronan.’

‘Don’t… make…’ Ronan’s voice dropped so low Adam struggled to hear him. ‘I’ll be… around.’

The door opened and closed, and Adam silently sank down the wall.

 

 

 

It wasn’t furious anger. It wasn’t the kind of anger that made you torch buildings and break noses.

It was the worse kind, the kind that crawled around under your skin as soon as it got an opportunity, the kind that made it as hard to breathe as it was to think. Frightened anger. A child’s anger.

Adam knew he was angry. Adam probably knew he was afraid.

Maybe he didn’t know that Ronan would do anything he asked if it meant he’d change his mind. That Ronan would have offered _anything_ , if there was any possibility (he knew there wasn’t) that Adam would even consider it.

Adam made Adam’s choices and that was it.

He didn’t know that Ronan felt like he was dying, as much now as he had for months after his parents had been killed. Adam didn’t know that it felt like having the air supply cut off, but somehow still surviving, interminably, indefinitely suffering through every second.

Ronan knew Viridiveste would find a way to destroy Adam. They would trick him, hurt him and kill him.

There was nothing Ronan could do to stop it from happening. He wasn’t supposed to get close, in case VVC had Adam under surveillance. He wasn’t supposed to get close, because Adam didn’t want him to.

He was afraid.

Niall had been powerful, and Viridiveste had found a way to kill him. Whatever distrust Ronan had for Declan, this made everything clear. Viridiveste could have chosen Adam Parrish for an internship based on his work - he was consistently brilliant, Ronan had always known this from Gansey’s fervent admiration - but that didn’t justify a personal invitation from Colin Greenmantle.

Ronan remembered him from the funeral, a memory already tinted with bitterness at the time, and worsened now by the likelihood that Greenmantle had attended with full knowledge of what had been done to his parents.

Greenmantle was an arrogant asshole. He’d only have showed up at Aglionby if he’d wanted Parrish for some specific purpose, namely, tracking down the Widower.

Why was Greenmantle so interested in identifying the Widower now? If he hadn’t known about Niall, and that hadn’t been why he’d had the Lynches killed, why was he trying to find Ronan _now_?

What was the logic behind drawing Adam into VVC? Trapping him? Tricking information out of him? Luring the Widower? Or just… observation?

It didn’t _matter_. Whatever he intended, it threatened Adam, and it was unbearable.

 

 

 

Tuesday morning was an orientation, of sorts. Fifteen minutes getting processed by security, getting an ID card and an employee profile, ten minutes to get delivered to his own cubicle desk and console (a way into the system?) and then his supervisor, Silveira (not a researcher, Adam ascertained, but a Human Resources administrator, which apparently put him on a last name basis with the rest of the building), strode in to collect him.

‘We’ve organised a fairly comprehensive schedule for you.’ He announced, guiding Adam away from the cubicle. He’d handed over his crappy phone during the security check, under the instruction that the company didn’t allow communication beyond the internal network during work hours, so the only thing Adam was really leaving behind were his wallet and keys in a locked desk drawer. ‘You’ll have a preference for a particular field or project when you come to work for us full-time, but for now it’s useful for us to observe where your strengths are.’

‘Obviously some of our research is undertaken elsewhere. The itinerary will advise you in advance when you’ll be outside of Central, but all you are required to do is arrive and transport will be provided. All of our research is supervised from here and for safety reasons employee processing before relocation is mandatory.’

‘Don’t be alarmed if you struggle to follow the outlay. This is an assessment based on your skill set, not your foreknowledge. Try to avoid distractions, however. Don’t be late, because researchers won’t wait for you, and if you misplace your ID card at any point inform security immediately. The system won’t let anyone else in if they have it, but it won’t let you move around if you don’t.’

Adam signalled understanding of this rapidly delivered introduction, and found himself ushered through a series of passcode-sealed doors.

‘We’ll start you locally, in the microbiology lab, and rotate you through some of the marine biology, biotechnology and phytochemistry projects over the rest of this week. Next week you’ll mainly be in the chemistry department, and physics and development will occupy your final week. ‘

He gestured for Adam to swipe his card at a door branching off from the corridor, and followed him through. He lifted a hand to summon a man standing nearby, and concluded; ‘This is Dr. Latimer. He’ll walk you through what he needs from you today. I’ll collect you before lunch.’

Adam took Latimer’s offered hand, and heard the door close behind him.

 

 

 

There was a girl working in anthecology who insisted upon helping Adam through lunch breaks and down-time. She also introduced him to his own portfolio, accessible over the network and gradually absorbing the full range of projects he was destined to participate in.

Elizabeth (she was in the postgraduate program) sat on the edge of his desk, swivelling his chair with one shoe and tapping at his keyboard.

‘You must be pretty damn clever for them to be spreading you so thin.’ She observed lightly. ‘I’ve never even been in the same room as Colin Greenmantle. How old are you again?’

Adam murmured something noncommittal, scanning the files open on his computer.

‘Are you passing through zoology?’ She continued, unfazed. ‘They have some wicked stuff in the zoo department. Oh look, there it is. The eels are great.’

She checked her watch and grinned. ‘Silveira will be here soon. I’ll catch you this afternoon, ‘kay?’

She squeezed his shoulder on the way past, and Adam barely restrained a startled flinch. That seemed overly familiar. Was this part of Greenmantle’s scheme?

Nothing else had seemed particularly questionable. Was Silveira a threat? Was Latimer? Was Elizabeth a ploy?

Everything in the microbiology laboratory was precise, methodical and apparently harmless (technically harmless - some of the spores were a little dubious). Nothing in the portfolio looked remotely dangerous. In fact, the majority was fascinating frontline research. Climatology, photo-electron spectroscopy, energy infrastructure. They were investigating immunology and neuroplasticity, pharmacology and astrochemistry. They built parts for space flight and sustainable energy production, neuroscientific research and medical equipment.

Silveira arrived, and glanced after Elizabeth.

‘Bright young lady.’ He noted smoothly, as Adam stood up. ’Excellent asset. Her interest in pollination will keep us on the forefront of the bee crisis.’

He nodded approvingly, and led Adam back towards microbiology.

 

 

 

Adam had intended to wait until school break to start his extra work at the newspaper office, but Silveira was responsible for deciding when he’d had enough for the day, and came into the lab to send him home at three.

His participation had gratifyingly extended beyond mere observation, into the realms of both testing and analysis, and Silveira informed him that Latimer had been pleased with his contribution.

Still, Adam had nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon, so he reported early for the archiving job, and stayed until it was dark copying and uploading the first few years of material.

The apartment was cold and empty when he got back, and he committed to eating lightly and showering before scrambling into bed as fast as possible to avoid pneumonia.

Ronan’s presence had staved off the worst of the discomfort of missing Noah, but without him even Adam’s cramped bedroom seemed large and isolated.

He suppressed thoughts of either of them.

 

 

 

There were photographs on the walls of some of the building corridors, between laboratory doors and section seals.

Adam found a picture of Niall and Aurora Lynch, dressed in formal attire, attending some celebratory dinner for Viridiveste. It couldn’t have been a particularly old picture, five, eight years earlier. Strikingly attractive figures, both brilliant and self-assured, both smiling happily and trustingly. Was it really true that Virdiveste had been responsible for their deaths?

How could people who were, by all accounts, overwhelmingly full of life… just relinquished and forgotten?

But they weren’t. Relinquished. Because Ronan hadn’t let go. And Declan and Matthew hadn’t forgotten.

Niall was unsettlingly similar to Ronan in the photograph. Young and confident. A brand of unselfconscious fearlessness. He had Ronan’s smirk, the unspoken promise of something extraordinary behind his eyes.

Adam _missed_ him. An ache in his chest and his hands. He was more than familiar with the sensation, more than capable of containing his emotions. He didn’t even react when someone spoke behind him.

‘A tragedy.’

Greenmantle. How could he even… _speak_ … about them?

‘I go to school with their son.’ Adam explained calmly. ‘When he shows up.’

’The youngest?’ Greenmantle’s tone didn’t alter, but nor did he feign any sympathy. ‘Shame about those kids. Must have had a rough time.’

Adam tilted his head. ‘He likes to share it around.’

Greenmantle made a small noise of amusement. ‘I wouldn’t pay that much heed, Mr. Parrish. It’s individuals like you and me who shape the future, not schoolyard troublemakers.’

Adam felt an unexpected rush of anger, and crushed it.

‘Did you need me, sir?’

’Not at this stage. I simply thought I’d congratulate you on your security profile being fully integrated into the system. You now have access to anywhere you need to go, and Silveira will be returning to his regularly scheduled data processing. Welcome onboard, Mr. Parrish.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

 

 

 

When Adam got home late Wednesday, after four hours of cataloguing and scanning papers, he found an extremely suspicious package on his kitchen counter.

He gathered, from the rather overt insect cartoon on the side of the box, that Henry had sent it, or delivered it, but he was moderately troubled by the fact that someone had apparently easily gained access to his apartment to leave it for him.

The box contained a series of enthusiastically bubble-wrapped objects, and one large, extremely comfortable-looking duffel coat. There was a note inside which instructed him to “DEPLOY DISRUPTORS” and a small hastily drawn sketch of several of the bubble wrapped items.

They were relatively simple circular devices, which Adam chose to place in each corner of his apartment and activated with a small twist.

He’d barely placed the last one when another of the wrapped objects started to buzz.

‘Henry?’

‘Parrish! You’re still alive. How charming.’ Even over the phone, he sounded pleased and unquantifiably _Henry_.

‘What’s all this?’

‘Security measures.’ Henry said gleefully. ‘The disruptors will take out anything which does not have my electronic signature attached. The phone is encrypted, also, and you will want to set a new passcode for it after we finish talking.’

‘What’s with the coat, Cheng?’

Adam hadn’t forgotten that this was business, but Christ, was he tired, and he knew that at some point he was going to be taking something into Viridiveste that was very much unwelcome there, and the thought gnawed at his nerves.

’The buttons are data storage, Parrish. Completely off-network.’

‘But I can’t get access to the internal system without hacking in.’ Adam protested. He wasn’t Henry. This heist would get to the admirable depth of a failed password attempt before Adam was arrested and probably worse.

‘Right. Of course.’ Henry hummed, and it was only the rising pitch which betrayed his uncertainty. ‘You will have to attach the buttons to the UC-E6 USB in the zip, and connect that to a internal server port. The USB consists of self-executing worm software and a rootkit to disguise its presence. Once connected, it will upload to the storage device without causing any alarm.’

Adam touched the front of the jacket, half-reverently, half-fearfully. ‘Is that a best-case scenario?’

There was a pause, long enough for Adam to realise that Henry was alone, that he’d been waiting for Adam to get home so he could call, that he probably hadn’t discussed this with Gansey or Ronan.

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks, Henry.’

‘Good luck, Adam.’

 

 

 

The media hadn’t released their death-grip on the superpowers issue, but things were escalating, now that the masked vigilantes were back on the streets in full force.

Jittery and hungry, Adam sat on the sofa and listened to the latest updates, unwillingly attentive to every mention of his friends.

Aegis and Ironbee were apparently re-discovering their roots, interrupting numerous petty crimes across the city and defending individual civilians in countless incidents over the previous days.

The media were calling it a rampant flaunting of power, but most of the witnesses were ascribing it to a reassertion of good moral values.

More than that, the Widower was back. After the situation with the man now being called Chimera, many had suggested that he hadn’t survived, but a sudden spike in criminal casualties on Tuesday night and Wednesday evening reportedly signalled his return.

Ronan took a harder line than Blue or Henry. He didn’t restrict himself to crimes-in-progress, or crimes with victims. The Widower was breaking into the dens of drug dealers, stalking gang territory, and hunting black market weapons suppliers. He was looking for fights, and he wasn’t keen for them to be clean.

It took a while after Adam had turned the television off for the vague, helpless horror to subside enough for sleep.

Was it punishment, for taking the internship? Did Ronan think he’d done it out of self-interest, or out of spite? Or was it impossible for Ronan to stand back without making himself physically unable to step in again?

Adam slept restlessly, haunted by formless nightmares.


	33. Should've opted for the Stark Internship

Adam wasn’t sure he had the nerve to go through with it.

He got to Viridiveste Corp. later than he’d intended, and he knew he’d let anxiety slow him down. The duffel coat - faded navy blue, he didn’t know where Henry had found it - sat heavy and warm across his shoulders, but he had to face the security check, and the large buttons hooked across his chest and stomach felt like blatantly suspicious accessories.

He didn’t know what would happen if they set off the X-ray machine, or upset the closely guarded device disruptors. He was trying not to think directly about it. Trying to think of excuses, instead, for why he’d have banned tech concealed in his jacket. Something other than ‘Honestly, I just thought the colour suited me.’

Under other circumstances, barely even a fortnight ago, the opportunity to intern at VVC (a _paid_ internship, no less, and negotiated as practical experience with Aglionby to support his scholarship) would have been the high point of Adam’s entire life.

Now he was smuggling contraband into the building in order to find evidence that Greenmantle was a murderer.

He wondered, unbuttoning the coat and folding it onto the conveyor, if he’d ever really expected to survive into his twenties.

He’d never expected to keep the scholarship at Aglionby for this long.

He’d never predicted actually _getting_ it.

He wasn’t sure he’d even presumed that graduating from school, any school, was _possible_.

Admittedly, most of that was predicated on the presence of his father. But even despite Robert Parrish and his sudden departure from the reality of Adam’s life, Adam had never had a positive history with what was generally termed ‘luck’ or ‘fate’ or even ‘chance.’

If there was a bigger picture, a big scheme of things, a predestined set of outcomes… Adam Parrish had never featured highly in any of them.

He’d considered the possibility more than once that he was a mistake that life was endeavouring, in a myriad of painful but not fully effective ways, to correct.

Adam stepped through the metal detector, and waited on the other side as the conveyor ferried his coat through the X-ray. Years of practice allowed him to keep his hands steady, eyes distant as if occupied by other matters, attention absent when the article of clothing emerged from the machine.

There was no alarm. No concerned glances. Not even a second look from the security guards as Adam collected the coat, along with his wallet and keys, and carefully replaced it on his shoulders.

 

 

He could have walked back out again. He could have left the network untouched and taken his coat home at the end of the day and abandoned the whole, nerve-wracking plan.

Gansey would have been relieved. Ronan might have forgiven him for agreeing to go in the first place.

But it would have been cowardice, and Ronan would still be lost to his own demons, and Adam couldn’t knowingly surrender the chance and forgive himself.

This was something he’d learned, over time.

No matter who else he would have to live with, he’d always have to live with himself first. Guilt and self-loathing left deeper scars than cuts and bruises.

He went to his desk, first, under the guise of checking where he’d be working. He sat in the swivel chair with the coat in his lap and toyed with the buttons and zip, detaching them and fitting them together in his lap, but the prospect of leaning forward and noticeably searching for the UC-E6 port on the computer made his stomach attempt to evacuate his body.

Nobody was looking at him. Even if they did glance his way, surely they’d assume he was using authorised technology, because nothing else was permitted here.

There was also the chilling fear that Henry’s software could be detected upon deployment and Adam would be dragged out of the cubicle in three minutes and never seen again.

 _They ruined Noah’s life_ , he reminded himself. _They took Ronan’s parents. They risked everyone in Washington, including Gansey. They attacked Blue and Henry. They’re trying to manipulate you._

He scooted the chair closer, dread running like ice through his wrists and making his fingers numb, and found the port on the back of the desktop.

He connected Henry’s hardware.

 

 

The morning’s task of assisting in the compilation of surveyed potential _Crassostrea virginica_ restoration sites kept Adam busy enough not to tremble or throw up or try to run. He repeatedly considered the improbability of Greenmantle showing up at Aglionby and requesting him without a strategy for getting rid of him too. Theoretically, Greenmantle could be hoping to obtain the Widower’s whereabouts through surveillance or carefully cultivated trust, but he had _led_ with an assassin. It seemed unlikely he’d take a step back towards subtlety.

Elizabeth found Adam on the way back to the cubicle before lunch, and he controlled every outward sign of agitation.

‘Will you come out tonight, undergrad? We’re pre-celebrating the end of the week.’

‘That sounds good.’ Adam swallowed, slowing his movement. ‘But I have work, sorry.’

‘Work.’ She frowned. ‘You work nightshifts?’

‘That’s it.’ Adam answered, edging around the corner of the cubicle. ‘After school.’

‘School?’ The frown deepened. ‘How old _are_ you, _wunderkind_?’

The USB wasn’t visible from a direct view of the computer, but Adam felt his breath catch as she followed him around the low wall.

‘Eighteen.’ He confessed, and she laughed.

‘Ah, you poor thing. No cocktails for you.’

She waited for him to collect his wallet, and he realised anxiously that he wasn’t going to be able to check the button, or extract it, at least not until after lunch.

 _It’s only thirty minutes_.

Nobody had come to get him so far, so it couldn’t have been found.

 _Another thirty minutes_.

 

 

After lunch Elizabeth insisted upon introducing him to two other graduates in the cafeteria, one from Botany and the other in Zoology.

He missed his window for getting back to the desk, and had to wait.

There was nothing, still nothing. They hadn’t found it.

Or they had, but they were waiting.

Adam forced himself to concentrate on the work.

 

 

He got back to the desk at quarter past three, heart thumping irregularly. The coat was still folded over his chair. He lifted it as he sat down, curling his fingers into the fabric and pulling it close to his chest. Would Henry know if something happened to him?

His fingers brushed the back of the computer, and caught around the smooth edge of the button.

Relief surged through him, and he rapidly replaced the fixtures on the coat before pocketing his keys and heading for the door.

They didn’t stop him on the way out, although one of the security guards from the morning nodded to him in passing.

When he got onto the sidewalk he felt like he was finally able to breathe. Christ, he wished Ronan was there. If Ronan were close, there wouldn’t be fear and adrenaline burning through him like acid.

He had a shift at the supermarket in two hours, which gave him enough time to get to the newspaper, but it seemed easier to go home immediately. The encrypted phone was under his pillow, and his call was picked up after a mere second.

‘Parrish?’

‘I couldn’t change the button over, Henry. What do I do with it?’

‘Are you alright, Adam?’ Henry’s tone was a mixture of concern and elation. ‘Did it work?’

‘Yes. Yes, I think so. I couldn’t change the hard drive. I don’t know how much I got.’

‘Plug it into the phone. Did anything unusual happen? Did anyone suspect anything?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’ Adam fumbled with the pieces of the USB.

‘Have you got it? Upload the data. Maybe you should avoid the building for a while.’

Adam paused, exasperated. ‘That’s fairly suspicious, wouldn’t you say?’

Henry snorted. ‘I don’t give a damn what’s _suspected_ , Parrish.’

‘Do you have it?’

‘Yes.’ Henry fell silent, and Adam’s insides twisted nervously.

‘What?’ Adam switched the phone from ear to ear. ‘Is it working?’

‘It’s working.’ Henry didn’t continue, and Adam huffed and sank onto the mattress. Had he even managed to get any data, after all that? Or had they found the software and eliminated it? Was it only a matter of time before Geminae showed up on his doorstep?

‘Henry-’

‘It’s fine, Adam.’ Henry was abruptly reassuring. ‘It’s just. More dense than I expected.’

‘How so?’ Adam tried to pinpoint Henry’s meaning. Statistical data? Theoretical work? Was it just administrative information that they’d hacked into?

‘It looks like we’ve only obtained a portion of the network files.’ Henry explained carefully. ‘Some project records, some employee files, and a certain amount of access logging.’

A portion?

 _Because I didn’t change the storage device_ , he realised sharply. ‘How much is on there?’

‘It’s not-’

‘How much?’

‘Twelve percent.’

 _God. God, no_. At the rate of one button’s worth of information a day, if Adam could keep his head, they’d only have full access after eight more days. He’d barely managed it today.

‘Okay.’

‘Parrish, this doesn’t mean-’

‘I’ll get more tomorrow.’ Adam said firmly. He wouldn’t quit. He wouldn’t _run_. ‘I’ll bring more back.’

’The risk is only going to increase.’ Henry warned him. ‘The more times you return, the greater the danger.’

‘I’ve got to go to work, Henry. I’ll sort it.’

‘Be careful, Parrish.’

‘I will.’

 

 

Work was unusually torturous on Thursday night. Adam had to catch himself occasionally when his mind wandered in the middle of a job or while serving a customer.

Sleep was also unforthcoming, and he got up the next morning feeling frayed and heavy-limbed. If Viridiveste hadn’t been enough to give him a headache, he was forced to swap the televisions around again, just in order to find out that Ronan had been either causing or disrupting gang conflict overnight.

The probability seemed to be decreasing that both of them would survive long enough to see their shared vendetta to the end.

Adam had hoped that Gansey’s attention would have contained some of Ronan’s recklessness, but it was a unfair assumption, and probably a hypocritical desire. He had no right to dictate behaviour to Ronan, and he had no basis for claiming any special sensitivity to Ronan’s emotions.

It was still disturbing, and added intensity to the unexpected fluctuations of his mood over the course of the morning - getting through security, getting another button plugged in, and getting allocated to the zoology team for the rest of the day.

One of the graduates Elizabeth had introduced him to, Josh, was liaising with the biotechnology team in experimentation with augmented ecological energy production systems. He was the one whom Dr. Barrett (“Call me Olivia!”) sent Adam off with for the facility tour. The zoology laboratory was one of the off-site buildings, consisting of a series of massive interconnected rooms filled with cages and tanks. It felt safer, somehow, to be away from Central, where the device was infiltrating the system. Made breathing easier. Josh seemed to misread his response.

‘It’s all very humane.’ He assured Adam. ‘We don’t test stuff _on_ the animals, we only observe, and test our equipment.’

There were a significant number of reptiles, especially frogs, and a variety of large insects. Adam wondered if any descendants of the Lynch projects had survived here.

He probably should have known it was a mistake to follow Josh up the stairs, but he didn’t realise it was a walkway until he taken a few hasty steps forward and faltered, dizzy.

The view of the drop oscillated, visible through the gaps in the metal, and he clutched the railing. Large, circular tanks filled the floorspace below, covered with grates but flickering with movement. Adam couldn’t focus enough to see what was in them.

He took another unsteady step forward, and stopped.

‘Shit, man, are you okay?’

He’d forgotten how difficult this was, without Ronan. It was worse than sneaking around Central. He caught his breath and lowered his knees to the metal uncertainly.

Josh crouched next to him. ‘It’s okay, man. C’mon, we’ll go back.’

Adam mumbled assent, and let Josh help him get back to the stairs.

‘Sorry.’

’S’all good. No problemo. My brother is terrified of spiders, you know. One look and he’s crying. Least you’re not in tears.’

This very helpful comment aside, Adam gradually felt his panic subsiding. He asked breathlessly; ‘What’s in the tanks?’

‘Electric eels.’ Josh replied cheerfully. ‘They give me the creeps, but Liz loves them.’

They descended to ground-level.

Long, sleek bodies rippled in indistinct patterns through the water inside the tanks. Josh grimaced. ‘I have nightmares about one of these tanks breaking, y’know.’

‘Are you measuring the electrical output?’

‘Given different conditions, yeah.’ He shrugged.

Adam frowned. It was a long stretch between any of the research he’d seen and what the Veil had been theorising about Viridiveste’s activities. Was it possible that Greenmantle knew they were looking? Could he have set Adam up to hack a system devoid of anything questionable?

 

 

Henry had already started skimming the data from Thursday by the time Adam got home with the second button.

‘Have you found anything?’

‘I’ve discovered details of at least one project the Lynches worked on.’ Henry answered. ‘Looks… relatively straightforward.’

Adam pulled on his work shirt. ‘Why would VVC have an external system at all, if the internal system is secure?’

Henry hummed. ‘Could be for the material they need to transmit between buildings, or between companies.’

‘It’s so much.’ Adam settled on the edge of the bed wearily. ‘We don’t even know what we’re looking for.’

‘Weapons manufacturing is supposed to be disclosed and sanctioned. That’s a good place to start.’

‘It’s not like they’re going to be recording every failed project which resulted in an accident.’ Adam said bitterly. ‘It’s not like they wouldn’t be cleaning the system of incriminating files.’

‘They still had records of Everett.’

‘With all the details erased.’

‘If you want to stop doing this-’

‘It’s fine, Henry. We just need more.’

 

 

Between Viridiveste, the supermarket and the newspaper, paying for groceries after work was simple. Adam settled on a late dinner of pasta, while revising the chemistry topic he’d missed. He’d sent Henry the new data, and he didn’t have work until tomorrow afternoon, so he was cautiously contemplating the likelihood of a sleep-in.

Naturally, Henry called him at 4am.

‘There was a small selection of encrypted files in this set you just sent me.’ He reported excitedly. ‘It took me some time to decode the first few, but it appears very promising, Parrish… Parrish?’

Adam rolled face-down into his pillow, groaning.

‘There happens to be some experimentation and analysis of psychic phenomena.’ Henry continued, unmoved. ‘I think you would find it very interesting.’

Adam issued a very muffled; ‘Ha.’

There was a pause. Adam’s breathing evened out, and his mind ambled slowly towards sleep.

‘Have you seen Lynch?’

The thought of Ronan stirred him. He hadn’t watched the news, avoiding fuel for bad dreams. ‘No. Why?’

‘No reason.’ Henry said innocently. ‘Young Gansey is saying he went off the reservation at the same time as you did.’

Adam turned restlessly, and asked; ‘Gansey thinks I’ve gone off the reservation?’

‘He’s concerned about your safety.’ Henry soothed. ‘Both of you.’

‘I haven’t seen him.’ Adam repeated distantly.

He wanted to ask if Henry knew where Ronan was, what Ronan was trying to do. He wanted to ask if there was some way to stop him.

‘I will return to the search.’

‘Thanks, Henry.’


	34. Impromptu practical demonstrations of the virtues of clean underwear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe you all a heartfelt thank you for your patience in putting up with this mindnumbing renegade narrative, and I must tell you that it is terribly generous of you to spend your time reading it, and (hopefully) enjoying it.   
> I want to say that I'm not steering this ship completely blind, but I'm not really a good sailor, so when things inevitably deviate from the expected (and probably the desirable) I do not wish to alarm or frustrate you, it is merely because my mind is an unruly place.   
> And also I strongly support modification to your own tastes and satisfaction, so please make of this plot whatever you wish.

Ronan found the wrong window.

It wasn’t surprising. It was frustrating, but it wasn’t surprising. Every floor of the goddamn building looked the same, and every apartment had the same line of grim windows set in the desolate brick facade.

He’d already broken the frame trying to lever it open when a light came on inside. The sight of the startlingly cluttered interior brought him to his senses rapidly enough to drop from the sill before being seen.

After that (because it hadn’t even occurred to him that his calculations could be incorrect) he was significantly more confused than he would have liked.

He chose another window, and managed to pry it open, but the apartment was dark, so the ownership was still in doubt. 

Something was itching its way down the length of his spine… a trail of blood, probably. Potentially a line of nerve damage.

There wasn’t anything under the window, and he slumped to the floor, irritated, pained, and yet somehow faintly amused. 

It was just like this week… just like this fucking week.

The overhead light flicked on, and Ronan grunted a complaint and covered his face with both arms.

He probably needed to move, in case he was in the wrong apartment, but it was getting more difficult by the second. Frankly, he didn’t care if he gave some miserable wretch in this building a heart attack. There was a formidable likelihood they were a well-deserving criminal, anyway.

‘What- ’ Relief flooded his system at the sound of that voice, and he squinted through the gap between his arms. _Adam_. He had a baseball bat dangling from one hand. _Adorable_. ‘-the hell?’

 _Adam, thank God, Adam_. He looked the same. Intense. Exhausted. Unharmed. Adam strode over, and Ronan heard the window slam shut.

‘What’s the matter?’ Adam crouched next to him, slipped a hand behind his neck. ‘What happened?’

He lifted the bottom of Ronan’s mask, hissing as his fingers found blood. Ronan grumbled a few curses, but he was smirking when Adam pulled the mask off.

‘Nice bat, Parrish.’

‘Jesus.’ There was blood all over the floor, now. Blood on Adam’s hands. ‘Can you stand?’

Ronan sniggered. ‘Yeah.’ He immediately failed to move. ‘Uh, no.’

‘Come on, Ronan.’ Adam lifted one of Ronan’s arms and pulled it around his own shoulders. ‘Jesus, _please_.’

Ronan had still managed to get the wrong window - he’d fallen into the living room instead of the bedroom - but at least he wasn’t bleeding on the carpet. ‘Don’t, man. M’fine here.’

‘You- This looks terrible.’ Adam touched the back of his skull, wincing in displeasure.

‘Heh, thanks.’ Ronan curled up tighter. He was a few minutes away from starting to heal, properly, a few minutes away from being non-functional. He just wanted to listen to Adam’s voice.

Christ, it had been so long, too long, without him.

‘Get _up_!’ Adam hauled him upright, gasping. ‘Stop being an asshole.’

Ronan swore, bitterly, and clutched Adam’s shoulder. He must have had one hell of a head wound, and the rest of his body was, putting it mildly, fluctuating between numbness and paralysing agony. Adam dragged him into the bathroom.

‘Can you- The door, Ronan, get the-’

Ronan, defiantly, kicked the edge of the bathroom door, destabilising them both. Adam tipped against the sink, struggling to hold him up and sounding aggrieved. ’The _shower_ door, dammit.’

Ronan produced a disparaging noise, and Adam lowered him onto the toilet, breathing ragged and furious. He loosened the suit and pulled it off Ronan’s shoulders, free of his arms and down to his waist.

Ronan didn’t look down. He wasn’t sure he could without passing out, and ignored Adam’s sharp intake of breath. He lifted one hand, liberated from the suit, and combed Adam’s hair back from his face. Parrish looked washed-out and delicate, in the harsh bathroom greyness, like a sun-faded portrait of himself.

‘You’re still alive.’ Ronan mumbled appreciatively.

Adam reached behind himself and pulled open the shower door. ‘You’re concussed, Ronan.’

‘M’not.’ Ronan snorted, regretted it as soon as pain fragmented into glass shards behind his eyes.

Adam pulled him to his feet, hooked his fingers into the suit and stripped it from Ronan’s legs. _Wearing underwear_ , Ronan decided absently, _had been a beneficial choice this morning_.

Fighting without underwear (which he’d tried) was no small feat, either.

‘Ronan.’ He stumbled into the glass square of the shower, hands tangled in Adam’s collar. ‘ _Ronan_.’

It wasn’t like he’d planned for this. It wasn’t as though he’d intended it.

He just wanted, wanted so much it hurt.

The first needle pains of regeneration stabbed through his body, reducing his line of sight to a sparkling array of random shapes and lights. He could feel the water hitting him, blessedly cold, sleeting down burning skin, and Adam’s narrow fingers propping up his chin, brushing his cheekbones.

By the time the pain subsided enough for him to see again, he was kneeling, and Adam was in front of him, the shoulders of his shirt soaked and locks of hair starting to stick to his face, attentively watching the water fall on his head.

‘Hey, man… _privacy_ …’

Adam’s eyes, bright and worried, were fixed on his face.

‘Jesus, Ronan, your pupils are a mess.’

Ronan pushed him, uncoordinatedly, with a finger. ‘Fuck off.’

He felt fingers curl around his ribs. ‘You probably have a brain injury.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ A wave of blinding pain struck him, and he dropped his head.

When he’d recovered enough to see again, his forehead was pressed damply to Adam’s collarbone, and he was only upright by virtue of Adam’s arms around him, hands, palms, fingertips pressing against Ronan’s skin.

‘Adam…’

 _Don’t make me leave_.

He just wanted to talk to Adam. It had been almost a week, a week of watching from a distance and wishing he’d refused to leave, wishing he’d fought harder. Almost a week of knowing that Greenmantle had something up his sleeve, something dangerous, and Ronan, like an idiot, had let Adam walk into his grasp.

A thumb brushed his jaw, scattering red tinted droplets of water, and Adam’s mouth traced after it, lips cold and comforting.

Ronan leaned into him, aching.

The next surge of healing silenced him, stole his breath and his momentum, and after several minutes of resistance, Ronan passed out.

 

 

 

Adam was in the process of carrying (dragging, realistically) him into the bedroom when Ronan regained consciousness. He tried to make his feet work, but they continued to slide sideways unresponsively across the carpet, so he settled for mumbling a few unflattering remarks about them instead.

He hit the edge of the mattress and Adam slowly lowered him onto his side, using his ankles to try and pull him straight. He muttered something uncomplimentary about Ronan’s weight and sighed.

Ronan’s vision was hazy, slightly nauseating. He dug into Adam’s pillows. _Worth it_.

After a few moments the bed dipped and something cold nudged him.

‘Jesus.’

‘You’re in my way.’ Adam said defensively. ‘You could at least make yourself useful.’

His icy toes pressed against Ronan’s calves, and he dragged the blankets up to his ribs. Ronan didn’t point out that he was still damp, or that Adam’s fresh sweater was gradually absorbing water from his skin. He attempted to curve unobtrusively closer.

‘What happened?’ Adam repeated quietly, a low vibration under Ronan’s head. ‘You look like you were hit by a truck.’

‘Armoured car.’ Ronan corrected indistinctly. Typically he tried to avoid combat with vehicles… He wasn’t Captain fucking America. Still, it had been a choice between stopping the car or potentially letting Prokopenko escape.

‘Who hit you?’

‘K’s right hand.’ He erratically recalled their unpleasant shared history with Kavinsky, and wondered if he’d chosen an ill-advised epithet.

Adam didn’t reply for a few seconds. ‘Do you mind the light?’

Ronan lifted his chin to look upwards, ignoring the catastrophic effect on his neck and the back of his skull. Adam’s hair was spun gold in the yellow lamplight, lips pressed together in a narrow line that quirked ironically at one end.

’S’two a.m. Monday.’ He noted, suspiciously.

‘You don’t know what day it is?’

Ronan knew, morbidly. Knew he should be at home, waiting for Gansey to wake up, if he’d even been able to sleep. Knew he’d chosen the cruellest night to go after Prokopenko, but he couldn’t leave it alone, couldn’t stay at home and play nice without Adam.

Adam absorbed his noncommittal silence with a sternly unconvinced air, before his features softened and his eyes warmed with amusement. He traced Ronan’s jaw with feather-light fingers, grazed the remnants of a split lip, and smiled.

‘Do you? Mind the light?’

‘No.’ Ronan watched him snag a book off the chest of drawers. If he hadn’t been too drowsy to move, he would have had trouble surrendering Adam’s attention to a mere book, but as it was, he could only tip his chin down and sigh into the worn softness of Adam’s sweater.

 

 

 

Ronan woke up with something uncomfortable digging into the side of his face.

He twitched, scrunched his nose, and was assailed with the dusty, papery scent of library book.

Higher on the pillows, Adam had fallen asleep, half shielded from view by his fallen paperback.

Ronan had gradually claimed space as he’d slept and healed, and was occupying both his own half of the narrow bed and a significant amount of Adam’s too. This may have been fortuitous… Parrish was cold where Ronan’s head rested on his chest, and colder still where he was without a blanket and beyond the heavy heat of Ronan’s torso.

Ronan pressed his face into Adam’s sweater, and tried to judge how well-healed he was, how much longer he could stay.

Adam wouldn’t throw him out if he was still healing.

Adam hadn’t thrown him out in the first place.

There was no indication Parrish had woken up, until the book was sharply drawn away.

Ronan hissed dramatically. ‘So. Many. Papercuts.’

‘Sorry.’ Adam’s voice was faint and exhausted.

Ronan lifted his head so his view was unobscured. One arm was slung across Adam’s shoulder to the top of the bed, and from Ronan’s chin to his knees he was crushing Parrish into the mattress. He must have manufactured enough heat overnight to prevent Adam from becoming hypothermic, at least, but his frozen hands were quick to curl behind Ronan’s neck in search of warmth.

‘Fix that fucking shower.’ Ronan growled.

‘It’s not broken.’ Adam said placidly, trying to slide lower down the mattress. ‘And you don’t even-’

In the middle of shifting himself down in the bed, Adam stilled. Ronan tried to focus his fuzzy attention enough to determine the cause of this sudden unease.

It didn’t take long to notice the persistent dampness of his thigh. What he’d initially assumed to be water from the shower, on closer analysis seemed to be a touch too sticky.

He understood Adam’s hesitation at exactly the same time as he identified what it was.

He forced out, voice gravel; ‘It’s blood, Parrish.’

There was an answering silence, before Adam started laughing. He laughed over Ronan’s head, then into his hair, and laughed uncontrollably for a few extra minutes.

‘Fuck off, Parrish.’ Ronan had, involuntarily, reddened. He could feel it burning his cheeks.

Adam sobered, but only fractionally. ‘Why are you still bleeding?’

Ronan half-shrugged, focused on the part of his leg that was apparently refusing to heal.

‘Might be glass in it.’ He acknowledged disinterestedly.

Adam took a moment to process this (or possibly to gather his strength) and carefully pushed Ronan’s shoulder. ‘Let me see.’

Ronan grumbled dissent. He’d prefer to stay like this, attempting to warm Adam up with as much physical contact as the task required. Parrish’s popsicle fingers were just beginning to thaw, and now he was shoving back the blanket.

‘Move, Ronan.’

Reluctantly, Ronan yielded space for Adam to sit up.

Adam frowned at the blood soaking through his sheets, and oozing down Ronan’s leg. ‘Is it hurting?’

Ronan shrugged again. ’Little something called compartmentalisation, over here.’ He fought the urge to fidget and bluster while Adam closely examined his thigh. Sure, Parrish had witnessed a wet-underwear situation earlier that morning, but Ronan had been incapacitated by brain trauma and bloodloss, and he wasn’t nearly so fortunate now there was a hand a little too high up his leg.

‘I don’t see it.’ Adam spared him an evaluative look. ‘Did you get shot?’

‘No.’ Ronan grimaced. ‘Probably.’

Adam rocked back. ‘You’re an asshole.’

Ronan moved his leg, enough to pinpoint a little pulse of localised pain as a shard of something cut through healed flesh. He blinked lazily at Adam. ‘Your bedside manner hasn’t improved.’

’Neither has your personality.’ Adam remarked mildly.

‘Smartass.’ Ronan poked him lightly in the ribs.

‘How do I get it out?’

‘You can’t.’ Ronan smirked. ‘Must have fragmented. I’ll sort it.’

Adam scowled, deeply unimpressed, but didn’t argue. ‘I’ll get food.’

‘Hm.’ Ronan snagged the edge of the blanket with one hand. ‘Five more minutes.’

He nudged Adam’s hip just enough to coax him into lying down, and gratefully sprawled on top of him.

 

 

 

By the time five minutes had turned into an hour and Ronan was waking up again, he was sleepy but nevertheless offended by an Adam-less bed.

He tipped off the mattress, ignoring the leg wound but dragging the sheets with him, and wandered into the living room.

Adam was making something that smelled suspiciously like omelette, and smirking. ‘Now who sleeps like the dead?’

‘Ha ha.’ Ronan squinted at him accusingly. ’Good to see you’re prioritising your stomach, Parrish.’

Adam smiled good-naturedly and scooped a large, rather chaotic omelette onto a plate. ‘Perhaps this will ease the pain.’

Already salivating to an undignified degree, Ronan allowed himself a modest expression of disgust. ‘What’s the green shit?’

‘Vegetables.’ Adam waved a spatula knowingly. ‘Unfamiliar though they may be.’

Ronan had ingested half of the omelette by the time Adam had finished the sentence, but still managed a disdainful look as he continued shovelling it in his face. ‘You’re a monster.’

Adam turned over a second omelette, movements deliberate and thoughtful, and finally paused long enough to reach for a cupboard. ‘If you survive, you can have these.’ He laid an unopened packet of Twizzlers on the counter between the two of them.

Ronan thought, momentarily, that he must have still been unconscious, and replaying that terrible fantasy where everything was alright and nobody was in imminent mortal danger, and he could happily stand in Adam Parrish’s apartment in his underwear and bedsheets and trade flirtatious insults over breakfast and candy.

Adam seemed to read his stunned silence as confusion. He shrugged with calculated nonchalance. ‘Merry Christmas, I guess.’

‘Nice, Parrish.’ Ronan’s brain kicked in with the full force of his sarcasm in tow. ‘This doesn’t mean I’m sharing.’

Adam got him a present. _Adam got him a present?_

‘I notice you’ve decided to give me more laundry.’ Adam observed smartly. ‘So considerate.’

‘Got you that bitchin’ tv.’ Ronan responded automatically, throwing a look over his shoulder. He blinked. ’Why’d you put the tv back up?

‘Hm?’ Adam turned his full attention to his omelette, and Ronan understood enough not to push it. He skirted the sofa, found Parrish’s tv exchanged for the new one, on the floor, screen facing the wall. He put his toes (good leg) on one corner and pushed just enough to reveal the front, a blank black screen with a hole punched through the glass, about the size of a fist, surrounded by radiating fracture lines.

Ronan toed the television back against the wall. He didn’t know whether to ask or not. He wasn’t ready to ruin this. He wasn’t ever going to be ready to leave.

Adam had circled the sofa anyway, plate in both hands, expression unreadable but humourless. He looked at Ronan. Ronan looked back.

‘What happened?’

Adam sat down, patiently. ‘I found it like that.’

‘After work?’ The muscles in Ronan’s forearms tightened, but he fought the desire to curl his hands into fists.

With admirable self-control, Adam shook his head impassively. ‘When I woke up.’

Ronan edged closer, watching him, frustrated and frightened and unprepared. Adam’s face was _blank, blank, blank_ , looking between the television sets and Ronan.

They both jumped when something made a shrill and distinctive noise from the corner of the room.

Ronan swore. ‘What the fuck is that?’

Adam left his food and straightened up, sighing. ‘Henry’s disruptors.’

‘His _what_?’

‘His - His interference devices.’ Adam tapped a discreet circle of black metal on the skirting board until the alarm ceased. ‘They block unknown signals from getting in or out.’

Ronan scowled unenthusiastically. ‘Almost as irritating as Cheng himself.’

Adam was swivelling, a gentle furrow appearing between faint eyebrows with his concern. ‘My phone is off. Is that yours?’

Gansey _. Dammit._ He didn’t want to go, he desperately didn’t want to go.

Adam had already ventured over to the window and returned with the Widower mask held at arm’s length. ‘You might need this dry-cleaned.’

‘I’m not answering it.’ Ronan said darkly.

‘You can’t.’ Adam explained calmly. ‘This just means Henry’s going to call me and make unsubtle allusions about your presence.’

Ronan’s scowl deepened. ‘Fan-fucking-tastic.’

True to his word, Parrish’s fancy Cheng-phone rang barely two minutes later.

‘Morning Henry.’

_Since when had Parrish and Cheng been on a first-name basis, anyway?_

‘Yeah, but- Oh. Yes? No, I will.’ Adam extended the phone towards Ronan, and he glared at it unwillingly. ‘Henry has a caller on line one for you.’

’No.’

‘It’s important, Ronan.’

‘No.’

Adam didn’t ask again. He simply pressed his lips together and raised his faint eyebrows and looked generally very scornful until Ronan snatched the phone.

‘ _What_?’

‘There happens to be a very excitable fellow who wishes to talk to you.’ Cheng explained rapidly, and slightly too eagerly. ‘Very excitable. Not a happy bunny, one might say.’

‘Tell him to fu-’ There was a little hiss of static, and Ronan was still growling at the moment the other voice cut over him.

‘Ronan. For Christ’s sake, what the hell are you _doing_?’

Ronan hesitated, staggered for a second time in fifteen minutes. ‘Declan?’

‘What the hell is this, Ronan, dial-a-vigilante?’

His brother’s voice was an automatic flame to Ronan’s temper. ’What do you _want_ , Declan?’

 _Oh man, if this was some Christmas happy families bullshit_ …

‘You need to get your ass home right now.’ Declan demanded, a winning combination of aggravated and unsettled.

‘Why?’ Horrifying images flashed, unbidden, through Ronan’s head. ‘Matthew-?’

‘He’s fine. He’s fine, okay, but there’s something here you have to come and deal with, right?’

‘What does _that_ mean?’ He would like, very much, to tell Declan to fuck off, but Adam was still looking at him, worry creeping across his fine features, and Ronan could only think about seeing Matthew, seeing Matthew again, and for Christmas.

‘There’s an infestation.’ Declan’s tone dropped, either a warning or an attempt to sound more confident than he actually was.

Ronan snorted. ‘Household pests are a little below my pay grade.’

‘I think you’ll find this is exactly your pay grade.’ Declan countered grimly. ‘And bring the Parrish kid, since he’s there. He’ll be useful.’

Declan hung up.


	35. Cue Rod Serling's dulcet tones

 

When Ronan came out of the bathroom (still in his underwear, but with three twisted chunks of metal hacked out of his leg), Adam was standing behind the counter, dressed in fresh jeans and a large dark grey striped sweater.

Ronan didn’t need an explanation. He didn’t argue, either, partially because he couldn’t decide himself if he wanted Adam’s presence on the trip more than he feared compromising him.

Adam looked up at him dubiously. ‘You can borrow some jeans.’

‘Your jeans don’t fit me.’ Ronan replied coolly.

‘ _Your_ jeans don’t fit you.’ Adam commented. ‘You’d need a shoehorn to get out of them.’

Ronan flushed, torn between defensiveness and delight in the knowledge that Parrish had made an appraisal of his jeans.

‘There’s a technique.’ He explained, with truly remarkable composure. ‘I’ll show you some time.’

 _Christ_. Adam smirked and glanced away.

‘I need to get the car.’ Ronan added. ‘I’ll go out in the suit.’

Adam frowned, but he didn’t protest. Ronan wasn’t sure if he was uneasy about the bloodied suit, or giving Greenmantle’s spies more ammunition.

He hadn’t failed to notice that Parrish had at least one unwanted tail. But as the Widower, at least, his attention to Adam was expected, and they’d have nothing more to report than his entry to the building.

It was frustrating that he needed to leave at all, and worse that he was leaving Adam as a prisoner in his own cruddy apartment.

‘I’ll come with you.’ Adam suggested finally. ‘From the roof. It’ll make us harder to track.’

Ronan pulled the suit up to his waist. He couldn’t identify which was more unsettling. Adam volunteering for an air expedition? Or Adam being aware that he was being followed, as casually as he was aware of how much Ronan wanted his company?

He nodded swiftly, before Adam could change his mind, and went for his mask.

 

 

 

Adam checked the hall before he let Ronan leave, but he lingered in the doorframe for a moment, watching Ronan sling himself into the stairwell and leap up to the next floor railing.

He followed several minutes later, backpack stuffed with extra clothes and Twizzlers.

The morning was still crisp when he got to the roof, but he paused, a few steps out from the door. Ronan, masked, turned towards him, and Adam pushed forwards.

Ronan was here, and… And he was just so tired. Somehow the prospect of falling wasn’t as bad as the prospect of being left behind.

‘You could stay.’ Ronan said quietly, voice metallic and unfamiliar. It startled him. He felt oddly relieved, as though some part of him had expected a reprimand.

‘I just want to go.’ He confessed, equally softly.

He wished Ronan hadn’t visited. It was like the offer of food to a starving man, not enough, never enough. And now there was trouble at Ronan’s home, and Adam would have chosen helping him over any alternative.

‘Then we go.’ Ronan shrugged, and pulled him firmly towards the edge of the roof. ‘I think I remember where I parked.’

‘You _think_?’ Ronan’s arm caught around his waist, less intimate, more self-conscious than when they’d gone to the bridge. It was a memory (while safely on the ground) that Adam enjoyed unpacking, in rare, solitary moments.

For a single second they stood close enough for Adam to see delicate lines across the dark fabric of the suit, to see his own reflection in the eight black mirrors, to picture how Ronan’s striking blue eyes were narrowed at him. Then Ronan was running, pulling Adam close to his body as easily as a pillow or a sack of potatoes, and launching himself off the edge of the roof.

The BMW wasn’t near Monmouth, or even near Foxway. It was in the carpark of a hospital uptown, with a long-term permit on the dashboard. Adam was still catching his breath several minutes after they landed, but he managed to gasp, regretfully; ‘How’s Dittley?’

’Still comatose.’ Ronan pulled open the driver’s door and flung himself through it, between the headrests and into the backseat. ‘You’re driving, Parrish.’

Adam snorted, and watched Ronan’s feet vanish into the dark interior of the car. ‘That’s absurd.’

There was a hushed silence, Adam standing, trembling, outside the open door, the majority of the carpark a broad, empty urban plain.

Ronan’s head reappeared, maskless and glaring. ‘Get in the car, Adam.’

‘Ronan-’

‘In.’ Ronan withdrew his head from view sharply.

Adam climbed gingerly into the driver’s seat, and pulled the door closed. ‘Ronan-’

‘Shhh-’ One of Ronan’s hands landed on the shoulder of Adam’s seat, gloveless, and a long pale arm stretched behind it. Adam averted his gaze instinctively, his immediate reaction somewhere between the realms of _backseat nudity_ and _panic_.

For the third time, involuntarily, he breathed; ‘ _Ronan_.’

He managed to get the car on, in gear, and rolling, but there was a sharp turn out of the carpark where he clipped the curb and there was a hiss from the backseat. Ronan emerged, legs first, and curved himself into the passenger seat with the easy flexibility of a gymnast. He was dressed, thank Christ, wearing jeans and unusually, a black hoodie.

‘Maybe some time today, Parrish.’ He admonished smoothly, adjusting his seat. ‘I’d like to get there before New Year.’

Adam frowned at him, but obligingly pulled out into traffic.

He drove until they were out of the city, a halting, hesitant series of stalls and false starts that Ronan proceeded to mock loudly. It was only when they were out onto relatively quiet roads that Ronan instructed him to pull over and reclaimed the driver’s seat. It was frustrating, but possibly sensible. Adam had barely been in the passenger’s seat for two minutes before he felt his eyes drifting shut.

He watched Ronan, lit from the window and windscreen, angles and faint bruises, until he wasn’t sure if he was awake or dreaming.

There was a feeling, yawning, terrifying, an open chasm in his stomach he wasn’t sure there would ever be enough contact, enough _Ronan_ to fill. It wasn’t possible to contemplate Ronan in any encompassing way, and it wasn’t possible to suppress the desperate need to try, to hold the idea of Ronan in his mind long enough to be calm.

The early morning interruption had forced the feeling into flux. Unexpected pleasure at seeing Ronan, agitation at his injuries, and a temporary reprieve while holding on to him, watching him sleep, feeling his skin burn. Adam would have stayed awake, if he could have. Revelled in every subsequent moment without being tormented by longing and fear.

He wanted to go back to the airstrip, where everything was Ronan, and what was distant seemed resolvable. He wanted to know that Ronan would always come back, that the chasm would always be satiated.

 

His sleep was the first restful one in a week, and he stirred reluctantly when knuckles tapped at his window.

It was only Ronan, backlit by blue-grey sky. The car was empty, and had long-cooled from the heater’s efforts during the trip. Ronan must have left him to sleep after they’d arrived.

The driver’s door opened sharply, and Adam started, but it was only Matthew Lynch’s bright-eyed, golden head. ‘Hi Adam.’

‘Hey.’

Adam’s backpack was on the driver’s seat, open, and there was an extra jacket (lacking high-tech buttons, thankfully) spread over his chest, which he pulled on as he climbed out. The Lynch house towered behind the car, and the shade of a large tree dappled the driveway where they stood.

‘In the bag, Matthew.’ Ronan reached for Adam’s arm as he stumbled sleepily. Matthew withdrew the box of Twizzlers from the bag.

‘You got candy.’ He observed respectfully. ‘Nice.’

‘Matthew wanted to see what you got me for Christmas.’ Ronan explained, his hand warm around Adam’s elbow, gaze tracing Adam’s features. ‘Declan got him a paintball gun.’

Matthew crossed his arms across the top of the BMW and laid his chin on them happily. ‘Poor Declan.’

‘So what’s up, man?’ Ronan circled the car and slung an arm around Matthew’s shoulders. ’Declan’s finally gone off the deep end?’

‘He says there something here.’ Matthew gestured, with the airy carelessness of youth.

‘What?’

‘He doesn’t know.’ He shrugged and grinned. ‘He just says there’s something.’

‘Where is he?’ Adam asked uneasily. He’d only received a vague (and colourfully re-worded) description of what Declan had said on the phone - but there had definitely been the word ‘infestation.’

Matthew looked around himself in a small circle. ‘Don’t know.’ He admitted brightly. Adam was struck by the sense that Ronan and Declan must have mutually put a lot of effort into keeping their brother this charmingly lighthearted.

‘Probably walked back to the hangar.’ Ronan said grimly. Something flickered behind the intentional detachment… Declan didn’t have Ronan’s strength, or probably even his healing, and none of them knew what he was confronting. ‘Alright, get in.’

This was apparently directed at Adam, but Matthew perked up immediately.

‘Not you. Go paintball Declan’s room.’ Ronan commanded briskly.

‘Aw, Ronan.’ Matthew protested, still smiling. ‘I wanna see. It’s not like it’s gonna kill me.’ His grin widened, and suddenly he hesitated, and shot a concerned look over the car at Adam.

‘Parrish knows.’ Ronan admitted. ‘But you gotta not mouth off like that in front of people.’ He motioned at Adam to get in the car, and allowed Matthew to clamber into the backseat.

A moment later his curls tickled Adam’s ear. ‘Are you a superhero too?’

Ronan revved the engine and slammed his door. ‘ _I’m_ not a superhero.’

‘Yeah?’ Matthew furtively dug around in one of the footwells and produced the Widower mask. ‘Denial?’

‘Put that down.’

‘Will you put it on?’

‘No.’

‘Please, Ronan. It can be my present.’

Ronan’s face morphed into something very beleaguered but not entirely resistant. ‘Later. But only because it’ll piss Declan off.’

Matthew chirped excitedly, and turned his attention back to Adam.

‘Do you have _superpowers_?’ He repeated amiably.

Adam shook his head. He wasn’t sure if he found the question unnerving, or his own uncertainty about the answer. Matthew’s presence reminded him of strictly contained thoughts of Noah.

Courtesy of Ronan’s driving, they reached the hangar before Matthew could pursue the line of questioning.

Declan was waiting inside, startlingly self-possessed and unharmed. ‘You took your time.’

Ronan glowered. ‘Don’t get your panties in a bunch.’

Adam edged away. The inside of the hangar looked the same… exactly the same. The cars still lined up and covered, disassembled pieces laid on the shelves against the back wall, the webs of ropes and chains and makeshift climbing frames across the great high expanse, and the plane, with the personal entry hanging open.

He couldn’t pick out anything peculiarly unsettling in the building. It felt like a space caught out of time, unaffected, unaltered.

But Ronan had described Declan’s sense of things, and Adam believed it.

His recollection of their first interaction in the driveway house had shifted, in fragile, subtle ways. Now he couldn’t tell if Declan had meant he was a threat to Ronan’s security, his secret identity, or something worse, a physical threat, a risk to Ronan’s safety. Whatever he’d meant, Declan had _known_ , and now he stood unruffled by Niall Lynch’s workbench, and expressed no surprise at Adam’s presence.

It could have been that he was too busy arguing with Ronan.

Matthew ambled over to Adam. ‘Do you see it?’

‘No.’ Adam rubbed his cold hands together and hooked them into his sleeves. ‘I don’t really know what we’re looking for.’

‘Heh.’ Matthew replied appreciatively. ‘Hey, my Wolverine.’ He scooped a figurine off the bonnet of the Jaguar eagerly.

Adam paused, confused. He hummed to disguise his discomfort. ‘Did you leave that here?’

‘Here?’ Matthew blinked at him. ‘Nah. Declan doesn’t like me in here. Says it’s a death trap.’

Adam extended a hand, tentatively, and Matthew cheerfully handed over the figurine. He admitted; ‘I thought Ronan took this up to the house.’

‘Huh.’ Matthew blinked again, and then smiled. ‘Yeah.’

The argument seemed to have died off abruptly as the older Lynches had recognised Matthew was there, but both still stood, fuming, at some distance. Adam tried to remember if Wolverine had been on top of the car two weeks earlier, if he’d seen Ronan setting it up in the house. He’d been distracted, ridiculously distracted… and maybe Ronan had been back, in the meantime.

It occurred to him, suddenly, that Matthew had wanted to see Ronan over Christmas… That he’d said as much to them as they’d left. Adam himself had been longing to see Ronan since he’d vanished on Monday, and in addition to Ronan’s concussion, an urgent call to arms from Declan seemed to have rendered both unlikely scenarios a reality.

Adam allowed himself a glance in Ronan’s direction, and he handed Wolverine back to Matthew.

Declan and Ronan had decided upon striding in opposite directions and poking around the corners of the hangar. Adam followed the latter, acknowledging his uncomplimentary mutters with a light smile.

‘Anything?’

‘Of course not, Parrish.’ Ronan said irritably. ‘Declan’s being neurotic.’

‘What did he see?’

Ronan snorted. ‘He didn’t _see_ anything. He’s just convinced he can sense an unfamiliar entity or some shit.’

‘Sense?’ Adam frowned doubtfully, then added; ‘Unfamiliar entity?’

Ronan raised both dark eyebrows. ‘Exactly.’

He didn’t seem overly pleased with himself, Adam considered, but then, Ronan had successfully hidden the Widower from Gansey for more than a year, so why wouldn’t he be able to hide one scheme from Adam?

He seemed more than aware of Adam’s suspicion, and returned a sharp look. ‘Anything on your radar?’

‘No.’ Adam widened his eyes. ‘Nothing.’

He wasn’t sure he’d ever been so unconvincing in his life, and Ronan’s answering smile showed teeth.

They reconvened around the covered Cadillac.

‘I’m not chasing your fantasies around all day.’ Ronan snapped. ‘If you don’t figure out what it is we’re looking for, I’m getting lunch.’

Declan scowled; ‘You’re not leaving until you’ve dealt with this.’

‘There’s nothing here, Declan!’

Matthew, calmly, rolled his eyes at Adam.

‘There _is_ , you’re just too damn self-absorbed to notice!’

‘Maybe you’ve got a cold. Maybe you’ve finally inhaled too much of that Armani aftershave.’

‘I’m not _smelling_ the goddamn thing, I _know_ it’s here.’

Ronan waved his arms emphatically. ‘Where!?’

‘Here!’ Declan growled. ‘For Christ’s sake, Ronan, use your head. You think I’d want you here if I wasn’t sure?’

Ronan didn’t answer, his jaw moving, and finally he lifted his chin. ‘Fine.’

‘Things move.’ Declan continued, with more restraint. ‘Clothes, toys, food… I assumed it was you, fucking around.’ He glanced at Matthew worriedly. ‘But there was something in the house last night.’

‘Doing what?’ Ronan’s expression turned vicious. Anything that went near Matthew was undoubtedly a good target for annihilation.

‘Eating. Moving around.’

’So…’ Ronan sighed. ‘You brought me here to deal with a large raccoon?’

‘Raccoons don’t open packets.’ Declan pointed to a cereal box, empty and overturned, on the floor by the Cadillac’s tire. Without turning around, he suddenly snapped; ‘Don't even think about climbing on that.' 

Behind him, Matthew reluctantly withdrew from a rickety makeshift ladder.

Ronan glared. 'Why the hell not? What's it gonna do to him?'

‘You want to see your little brother cry? Don't even pretend he won't.'

Ronan gave him the finger, but didn't argue further. Declan’s expression, amazingly, remained unaffected. He shot a sideways glance at Adam, hanging back from the argument. ‘I’ll take Matthew and get food. Find it. Get rid of it.’

Adam flushed and said nothing, but Ronan visibly simmered.

 

 

 

He wasn’t sure what Declan thought he was able to do, or what Declan thought he was going to do, and the sensation of having something about himself seen (or suspected) which he didn’t understand was unpleasant.

Ronan strode around the perimeter a few times, and even climbed around the rafters, searching.

Adam looked at more of Niall’s things, examined the cars beneath their covers, and carefully checked under any objects large enough to conceal a raccoon.

He turned to the plane, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to go in. It was open. Surely that meant Declan had already investigated it?

‘Parrish.’ Ronan dropped down beside him lightly. ‘You think he’s losing it?’

Adam inspected his features. ‘It wasn’t you, then?’

Ronan laughed, faltering when Adam didn’t smile. ‘What? No.’ He frowned. ‘I was with you.’

Adam allowed a thoughtful nod. ‘Okay. So…’

‘Possum.’ Ronan concluded triumphantly.

‘Is it likely he’d be so worried about a possum?’ Adam asked. ‘Seems like an overreaction.’

Ronan shrugged. ‘He’s melodramatic. And not all that bright.’

‘Maybe the mask would help.’ Adam suggested. ‘It’s enhanced, right?’

Ronan tipped his head, contemplatively, before calmly jogging out of the building.

The hatchway into the plane loomed in front of Adam. He didn’t want to look inside, which seemed odd, given that it hadn’t been menacing the first time he’d visited. Ronan returned, mask pulled unevenly over his face, and he jerked his chin at it cautiously. ‘We should check in there.’

Ronan looked from him to the plane and back again. ‘I’m not stopping you.’ He didn’t move, but the lopsided eyes were blackly questioning.

‘Okay.’ Adam answered, starting forward. It was no big deal. Just… sensible caution. Maybe he needed some kind of anti-raccoon device, though. He missed his baseball bat.

Ronan caught up with him as he started up the stairs, a little closer than necessary, and Adam was relieved.

 _It’s just a dark, metal tube,_ he reminded himself, _just a dark, creepy, metal container of angry wildercreature_.

At least Ronan probably had the speed and coordination to fly-kick anything that launched itself at Adam’s face.

Adam went through the hatch first, ducking his head, and sighed when he realised that the interior was fairly well lit by the cockpit window. Everything was intact, metallic and bare, like the last time they’d been there. Safety belts hanging off the walls, dangling nets for cargo. Twin pilot seats, with dodgy, aged upholstery. Ronan glanced up to the front, then down to the back, and the cargo doors, and then at the metal grate under his feet. ‘Huh.’

Adam swallowed. ‘Nothing here.’ He still felt uncomfortable. There were places he couldn’t see, places he should check. Storage compartments. The half hidden cockpit. What looked like a hollow space under their feet.

‘Nothing here.’ Ronan repeated flatly. He looked down the length of the seating bench opposite them, and to the side of Adam’s face. ‘Don’t let Declan get in your head.’

Defensively, Adam felt like turning the comment back on him, but he bit it down. Maybe he had let Declan get in his head. Maybe he was presuming there was more to this incident than a bit of seasonal anxiety getting the better of Declan Lynch.

He forced himself to edge through the hatch into the cockpit, but it was empty.

Still, he hesitated.

A familiar leather jacket was tossed over one of the seats, and Adam hooked it with two fingers and lifted it up.

He took it into the back, and warily showed it to Ronan. ‘Thought we moved this?’

Ronan prodded it, also wary. ‘It’s Matthew’s. He probably brought it back.’

‘Declan doesn’t let him in here.’ Adam pointed out. He felt the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Something wasn’t right, here. Something felt wrong. Frightening.

Was this linked to the broken tv? To his nightmares? To Noah?

They were both silent, twisting a little to gaze into the shadowed corners of the plane.

Adam felt Ronan’s fingers curl around his, gently pulling his arm, and heard the low, measured warning. ‘Adam…’

He didn’t stop staring towards the front of the plane. He didn’t know if Ronan could feel it too - something familiar, something pressing on the edges of his thoughts, not digging, not forcing, but definitely present - and he didn’t know if Ronan would even recognise what he felt. Not frightening. Just frightened. Almost certainly not a raccoon.

He sank into a crouch, slowly, and lowered the leather jacket to the floor. Ronan’s hand tightened on his.

‘Is this yours?’ He felt blind, with eyes full of light. He didn’t know what he was asking. He was looking at nothing. Fear spiked between his temples, and he whispered to Ronan. ‘Take off your mask.’

Ronan made a disparaging noise, but Adam felt him move.

The light in front of him rippled, like the surface of a lake, like a haze dissipating, and the outline of a small creature appeared, colour shifting and coursing between edges until Adam thought he could almost see it clearly.

It was a child. Just a child, crouched between the two chairs through the hatchway. Adam must have been close enough to touch it, before, but he’d looked straight through it.

It erupted forward, astonishingly quick, and Adam was against Ronan’s side before he even had time to react. Ronan’s arm coiled around his waist, and twisted him out of the way, but the child was merely latching onto the jacket, gazing up at Ronan with wide, round eyes.

In a delicate, distinct whisper, it asked; ‘Niall?’

Ronan froze.

Adam stared. There was a lot of pale skin, big, luminous eyes, and abundant, tangled blonde hair. She was a little girl, Adam thought, a very young one.

 _Niall?_ Niall had died years ago. How long had this creature been here?

 _What_ was she?


	36. That's a really weird looking raccoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, I had something for this...

Ronan’s distress was palpable.

Adam couldn’t let go of his hand, less because he was worried about Ronan’s reaction and more because he was just worried about Ronan. He used his weight to slide loose of Ronan’s arm, and back into a crouch, laying his free hand palm up against the metal grate so she’d know he wasn’t preparing to grab her.

‘What are you?’ Ronan’s voice, sharp-edged and taut. Adam squeezed his hand.

‘This is Ronan… Niall’s son.’ He said softly, trying to hold her suspicious, darting gaze. ‘I’m Adam.’

Her lips parted, revealing bright, needle sharp teeth, but the gesture didn’t seem so much defensive as uncertain. Adam recognised the look - it was as though she’d mimicked it straight from a Lynch.

‘Niall left.’ She acknowledged, eyes narrowed. ‘Gone.’

‘Right.’ Adam swallowed. What could they do with this strange creature? They couldn’t call the police, not if she was powered… not if she knew anything about the Lynches. More than that, not if her connection with Niall was possibly dubious.

She straightened up slightly, pulling the jacket up from the floor, and Adam noted the oversized jersey she was apparently wearing as a dress. Something filched from the house, he suspected. How had she been invisible? How did that invisibility transfer to her clothing?

‘ _Parrish_.’ Ronan growled. The girl’s attention caught on him, momentarily discounting Adam as a threat, but she didn’t seem alarmed by his tone.

‘You miss him?’ Adam murmured, awareness seeping through his skin. She didn’t answer, pale little fingers clenched in the tan leather. He continued regretfully; ‘Ronan misses him too.’

Adam felt Ronan’s grip tighten and slacken reflexively as though pulling away, but he didn’t. The girl was still looking up at him, still staring at his familiar face, and her bottom lip trembled. ‘Dead.’ She confirmed wretchedly. Adam recognised her despair, or felt it, somehow, instinctively measuring it against memory.

‘He brought you here?’ Ronan dropped to his knees. ‘Did he bring you here? When?’

She inched towards him, her eyes beginning to water. ’S’hiding.’

‘Hiding from us?’

She shook her head emphatically, white gold locks catching and toppling over her shoulders in a little waterfall. ‘Monsters.’ 

Adam felt his stomach plunge, and Ronan lean into him with the heavy thoughtlessness of someone struck by a blow.

‘Monsters.’ Adam repeated weakly.

‘Were you hiding from Dad?’ Ronan pressed, low and guttural. ‘What did he do?’

She made a small, depressed noise of dissent. ‘Niall helped. Fixed it.’ Her little fingers loosened and she raised both tiny arms. Adam watched them ripple with colour and slowly dematerialise, from fingers to shoulders, and caught his breath. _Incredible, incredible creature_.

Ronan dropped the mask he was holding, and leaned closer. ‘Dad gave you power?’

‘Mngh.’ She shuddered delicately and crept towards him. ‘Monsters. Kept changing. Niall fixed it.’

Adam started as her hand, apparently invisible, clutched his frozen arm.

‘How? Where do you come from?’ Ronan drew an uneven breath. ‘Did he bring you here? And tell you to hide?’

The little girl didn’t answer, but her damp blue eyes stayed fixed on Ronan’s face, until she was within arm’s reach of him.

He stretched out his hand, and her fingertips, gradually becoming visible, wrapped around his wrist, and she curled herself fearfully under his chin. Ronan’s eyes found Adam’s over her head, his expression unbearably fierce and fragile.

 

 

 

Ronan had coaxed the girl out of the plane (unwillingly) by the time Declan and Matthew got back. The three of them sat in the Cadillac in silence, eating Twizzlers, the little girl in Matthew’s jacket and nestled on Ronan’s chest. He was slumped in the back, watching Adam, and Adam was folded up in the passengers seat, knees to his chin and gazing back.

He wondered if they could conceivably run away from any of this. Find a new city, a new school and a new life. A future, even. 

Would he throw everything he’d worked for away, for Ronan? Was it even possible to consider it an option, if Ronan asked him?

Yes. Because Adam would have him. 

No, because maybe Adam wouldn’t have himself.

No, because Ronan wouldn’t ever walk away. That was why there was the internship. That was why there was that awful blue coat and the awful brass buttons. Because Ronan couldn’t be free without knowing, like Adam couldn’t be free without proving that freedom to himself.

No, because Ronan wasn’t just a person. 

No, because Adam couldn’t fully fathom what he was.

No... because he didn’t know what either of them were.

Ronan kicked him lightly with one stretched foot, and Adam wondered if they shared the same line of thought.

He hoped not. Underneath the fascination with the girl, the reluctant curiosity about Niall Lynch, and the avid worry about how Declan and Ronan would reconcile their predictably disparate feelings about this discovery, Adam was still afraid. 

Not the child’s fear, but his own, more finely hewn now for having it dragged unwillingly to the surface with hers.

He was afraid of Greenmantle, because the internship didn’t make sense unless it was a trap, and a trap for the Widower could have been laid at Adams apartment the night before, but none had been, and they’d remained vulnerable but undisturbed. So it might have been a trap for the Veil, but Adam didn’t know how. Or it might have been just a tiny piece of a scheme so big Adam couldn’t even see it, and they’d lost before they’d even started.

He was afraid of how much finding this girl would hurt Ronan, push him further and faster into the downward spiral Adam had caused. 

He was afraid because Noah hadn’t come back, and because he had nightmares nearly every night, and because the tv had been broken and none of Henry’s sensors had gone off, so Adam had been alone in the apartment. He was also afraid because Ronan would leave again, and he hadn’t expected how much it would hurt the first time, and how scared he’d be that Ronan wouldn’t come back, or that he’d lose him, or that he’d end up making things worse without a chance to make them better.

All of them were chewing in solemn silence when Matthew bounced through the gap in the door. Declan followed him, face set in pre-emptive frustration.

‘Did you find anything?’ Matthew pulled open the driver’s door, blissfully unaware, and dropped himself onto the seat.

Declan had already stopped in his tracks, alarm suffusing his features. ‘What in the goddamn hell?’

Thankfully, time had lulled both Adam and the little girl into relative tranquility, but Adam still felt the spark of anxiety evoked by a raised voice.

Matthew quirked his head. ‘Who’s this?’ His bright grin seemed to amuse the young stranger, who examined him curiously.

‘Found your raccoon.’ Ronan explained flatly. ‘Guess you didn’t know as much about Dad as you thought.’

Declan’s response was darkly suspicious. ‘What are you saying?’

Adam wasn’t entirely following Ronan’s reasoning. He would have hazarded a guess that this creature was the result of some experiment, if not by Niall himself (who had after all, in some manner, gained the Widower abilities) then presumably by someone he worked with. Admittedly, there were other causes for uncertainty. All the brothers had obtained powers genetically, and her bright eyes did resemble the Lynch blues.

Was there any possibility that Niall had a daughter? Was there any chance at all, that if he did, he would have hidden her existence? From his sons, potentially from Aurora?

Declan stood in front of the bonnet and swept his accusing gaze across the four of them. ’Explanation. Now.’

For a moment Adam thought Ronan was just going to curse and let the argument ramp up, but he just fidgeted slightly until both legs were hooked into the front of the car and sneered. ‘Don’t have one.’

‘What?’

‘Do you know what Dad was working on?’ Ronan continued, restraint audible in his tone. ‘Did you know she’d been here?’

Declan looked, momentarily, offended, but it was swiftly replaced by confusion. ‘He was working on haematology. With Mom, remember? After all, he was-’ He cut himself off, glancing at Matthew, but he’d said enough for Ronan to stiffen.

The latter turned his clenched jaw and caught Adam’s eye. ‘He was trying to synthesise a chemical mutagen for…’ His gaze, too, fluttered to Matthew’s innocent and baffled face. ‘… for creating a transposable element… ah, as such.’

Adam blinked at him a couple of times. Theoretically, he knew what Ronan meant… trying to create something which would trigger a genetic change. He wasn’t sure what that had to do with blood, though. Or Matthew.

The little magic-girl, on the other hand, could have been affected by such a thing, if there was even the possibility it could exist on the scale of such a complex organism.

‘What mutation?’ Adam asked blankly.

‘Something to do with medical treatment.’ Declan said, laying heavy emphasis on his last two words.

Genetic factors were richly prevalent in most medical conditions, Adam understood, but he didn’t know-

Ronan dropped one hand to his thigh, and fretfully pulled at the seam of his jeans. It was an unusual motion, perhaps merely because Ronan normally expressed his displeasure with greater force and energy, but Adam found himself staring.

_Oh._

_Ohhh._

He rubbed his eyes to disguise reluctant understanding. Niall had tried to replicate his own genetic features. Inhuman features. Enhanced abilities. _Healing_.

When Adam reopened his eyes, he glanced from Ronan to the girl and back, and met Ronan’s unblinking gaze. ‘To… fix… things.’ He said carefully. Ronan dropped his chin in a curt nod. So Niall could have used his research to alter the girl’s genetics, but that didn’t explain where she came from, or why she was still _here_.

‘You said Dad dug around.’ Ronan directed this at Declan accusingly. ‘What did you mean? What did he find out?’

‘I said he poked around.’ Declan corrected hotly. ‘I said he _poked_ around, that’s all I know.’

‘You’re _lying_.’ Ronan’s shout disturbed the girl, who hastily propelled herself over the door. Adam slipped out of the car and followed her to a safe distance. She linked her hand with his nervously.

‘Get ahold of yourself, Ronan.’ Declan flushed, eyes flicking between him and Matthew.

‘You compulsive fucking _liar_.’ Ronan lurched forward, preparing to launch himself off the seat and across the bonnet towards Declan, when Matthew made a rapturous noise.

‘Woooah.’ He was looking over at Adam and the girl, and when Ronan followed his gaze he visibly flinched.

‘Adam?’ He straightened up, poised on the back seat in mild panic.

Adam glanced aside at the girl, briefly horrified to discover he was unable to see not just her but his own hand. There was an emptiness, a peculiar translucence crawling up to his shoulder, engulfing him.

‘It’s fine.’ He clarified quickly. He felt no different. In fact, he felt equally as solid and present as he had a moment ago.

Ronan frowned, clearly in disagreement, but after a few seconds the rest of Adam reappeared. So did the little girl, watching him with a faintly sheepish stare.

He winked at her, hoping his face was detectable.

‘Matthew, go give Parrish and…’ Declan frowned, concern flickering across his steady features.‘… our visitor… some food.’

Matthew eased himself out of the car and came over to Adam, rolling his eyes once again. He crouched and smiled at the little girl. ‘That’s really cool. Do you wanna come have some fish and chips?’

The prospect of food and Matthew’s gentle cheerfulness were enough to convince the little girl to follow him, pulling Adam along behind her. He shot a look at Ronan as they went - something he hoped said _no more bloodshed_.

 

 

 

Ronan never fought with Declan, as much as he was frequently motivated to. He’d always been stronger than Declan, faster, and there was something inescapably unpleasant about the idea of employing superior strength against a person who’d never do the same to someone else.

Declan might have been a liar. A cheater. A bastard.

But he’d never been a bully.

So Ronan kept his distance. He threw himself over the back of the Cadillac and stalked wrathfully around the other junk in the hangar. Niall’s collection. His father’s collection, and how long had that little girl had been hiding in amongst his other secrets? For so long that she’d known him before he’d been killed. Long enough to be wearing one of Declan’s old basketball jerseys and Matthew’s jacket like they were part of her. It seemed barely possible that she was old enough to remember Niall, but then, Caedes always felt like decades and days ago simultaneously.

‘Dad was trying to replicate his genes?’ Ronan snarled, kicking a loose tire along the floor to channel some of his rage.

‘He said he was trying to reproduce regenerative effects.’ Declan shook his head, jaw clenched. ‘I didn’t know he’d been experimenting on _children_.’

Ronan flushed red, anger and disgust. ‘He was _not_ -’

Declan looked up, mouth open in disbelief. ‘Do you have eyes in your fucking head, Ronan? Did you just _see_ that?’

‘He was helping.’ Ronan snapped. ‘He helped her. Don’t pretend you didn’t know she was here, goddammit, it’s what you do.’

Declan exhaled, a disparaging rush of air that Ronan recognised as reluctance.

‘You didn’t know him like you think.’ He hissed. ‘He was always bringing work home. Crazy things. Dangerous things.’

Ronan bared his teeth. ‘You knew, you _knew_ , and you never mentioned her?’

‘I thought she was _gone_.’

The confession hung in a brutal silence. Ronan hunted the tire, picked it up and hurled it across the hangar.

‘I didn’t know.’ Declan admitted grimly. ‘I didn’t realise Viridiveste had anything to do with Caedes until after you were gone. And I didn’t know where she came from, back then. He told me to stay out of it.’

‘Where she came from?’ Ronan’s voice dropped to a vehement whisper. ‘From VVC?’

Declan didn’t answer, and Ronan found it increasingly difficult to say anything else. He climbed back into the Cadillac, the driver’s seat, and dropped his forehead against the steering wheel. Heat prickled behind his eyes, and he felt the familiar rush of anguish, deep and lonely fear.

The passenger door opened, and Declan slipped into the car.

They sat, for a moment, shoulder to shoulder.

Declan sighed. ‘You really hadn’t been back here.’

‘No.’ Ronan snapped, fury salvaging him from descent into childlike terror. He reflexively clarified that it wasn’t because of Declan’s damn rules. ‘I wouldn’t risk Matthew.’

Declan smirked, almost wistfully. ‘I know.’

Fearful, insensible questions flitted through Ronan’s brain. _Blink twice for no, three times for yes_... _Did Dad do this to people, intentionally? Did Dad hurt anyone? Was Mom involved? Did she know? Did she help?_

It was a fear that sank so low in his gut he couldn’t put a name to it without tearing himself apart.

If his parents had died for these experiments - for the suffering of children - and Ronan had killed for them... what did that make him? Worse than the people he killed? Or just the same, but too naive, too blind to realise?

No, he couldn’t believe it. His parents had never... they would _never_ have been involved in something like this.

_Should I stop Adam? Should I be duct taping him to a chair to end this VVC nightmare?_

There was a rustling noise from the door, and Ronan glanced up to see Matthew’s head poking in, crowned with a halo of sunlight.

He acknowledged their silent proximity with a broad grin. ‘Opal wants to know if you’re coming to eat.’

_Opal?_

 

 

 

Questions posed to the little mutant over the rest of the afternoon yielded the same responses. Monsters. Fixed. Niall.

Ronan discovered that the girl (Opal was her name, according to Matthew’s interrogation, which Ronan couldn’t quite get his head around) had an insatiable appetite, and she readily consumed everything vaguely food-related in sight, and prompted Ronan so insistently for more that he eventually had to take her back to the house.

He grudgingly agreed to let Matthew run a bath for her after lunch, though she refused to even approach the bathroom without being bribed with Twizzlers. Ronan sat outside the door with Matthew, who called in every few minutes to ensure she hadn’t somehow disappeared out the window.

Adam was… Ronan tried not to think about it.

Searching. Not quite with Declan, but not quite alone. As if Ronan hadn’t been agitated enough.

When Opal managed (on tiptoes) to open the door, she looked exactly the same but significantly more bedraggled. Matthew had supplied one of his own old shirts, and she was wearing it instead of the jersey, soaked through with water. Clearly she’d never learned the purpose of a towel.

She immediately climbed over Ronan’s legs, leaving sodden footprints on his jeans, and dried her hands and face on his hoodie.

Ronan rolled his eyes to high heaven and sent Matthew for a hand towel.

With the additional offer of a jar of strawberry jam, Opal was content to sit on the kitchen bench while Ronan patted her hair down exasperatedly and Matthew tried to feed her graham crackers and teach her I-Spy, despite the serious impediment posed by the fact that she didn’t seem to know the alphabet.

She’d emptied the jar by the time Parrish got back, as daylight was fading to dusk and the cool air to an icy chill.

‘Should she be eating that?’ Adam frowned, pushing through the back door. His jacket collar was flipped up against the wind. Obviously he’d made the wise choice of walking back, instead of getting into Declan’s Volvo.

‘You’re making dietary criticisms again?’ Ronan scowled at him. ‘Glass houses, Parrish.’

Adam smiled, sadly, and it stole Ronan’s breath. He couldn’t force himself to ask what they’d found.

‘Nothing.’ Adam answered anyway, with a hint of relief. ‘Nothing in the lab, or the office, or their notes.’

Opal, bemused by Matthew’s improvised spelling lessons, turned her large eyes on Parrish. Ronan tossed the damp towel into the kitchen sink sharply, and muttered; ‘Nothing.’

‘Wednesday.’ Adam said softly. ‘I’ll look.’

Ronan jerked his chin aloft so violently that both Matthew and Opal spared him matching looks of quizzical alarm. ‘Don’t fucking start.’

‘What do you expect me to say?’

‘Something _smart_ would be a fucking gift.’

Adam’s face stilled and smoothed over into impassiveness, but he didn’t have an opportunity to fire back before the front door opened and they heard Declan clattering in.

 

 

The evening was a strained combination of familiarity and discomfort. Ronan wasn’t sure where the decision to stay had come from. Probably an urge to linger with Matthew as long as possible. Uncertainty about what to do with the girl. Reluctance about returning Parrish to the city.

They ate in silence, except Matthew, who fidgeted and reminisced and shared his food with Opal. The rest of them stayed as far apart as possible, and in mutually morbid thought.

Declan had the heat on in the living room. Ronan sat in the window seat, on old, familiar cushions, traced the patterns of the window pane. Declan sat on one of the sofas and stared, sombrely, into space. Adam leaned against the other sofa, his back turned to the room, and quietly returned to the kitchen when he was finished.

Declan sentenced them to their (specific) sleeping arrangements.

Opal was to sleep in Ronan’s bed, as Declan was fully aware that Ronan wouldn’t need it. Matthew had his own room. Declan would relocate to Niall and Aurora’s bedroom. Under strict and unavoidable Geneva conventions of politeness, Parrish was allowed to shower and borrow his bed for the night.

The unspoken restriction did not escape Ronan’s notice. Under no circumstances was he permitted to enter Declan’s room.

If Adam perceived this indiscreet demonstration of paranoia, he showed no sign of it.

It was a meaningless sentiment. In fact, it was more like an added incentive.

Ronan moved from a watchful position in his own room to Declan’s the moment the door to their parent’s old room clicked shut. It wasn’t as though Declan wouldn’t know… that was half the pleasure of it.

He carried Opal with him, cradled in one arm, even though it made him feel strange. He was afraid of losing sight of either one of them, Adam or Opal. Both made of magic, like him, both tangled into his mess.

Surprisingly, Adam’s lamp was still on. He was sitting under the covers of Declan’s old bed and reading something earlier taken off Ronan’s shelf - which Ronan had the small discomfort of feeling mildly embarrassed about, before he remembered that his taste in books used to extend beyond takeout menus and angry feminist poetry that Blue sometimes pinned to the fridge. (Admittedly, he actually quite enjoyed both styles - rampant fury in rhymed verse struck a deep and resonant chord within him, and if there existed a description of wood oven or deep pan pizza that wouldn’t soothe his soul, he was yet to meet it).

‘Parrish?’ 

Adam lifted his head, smiled wearily. ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

Ronan laid Opal in a small ball on the end of the bed and draped a blanket over her. ‘I didn’t think you could ever not sleep.’

Adam huffed a soft laugh. ‘Fair.’

Ronan settled on the floor by the head of the bed and gazed up at him, greedy for the elegant line of his neck, his sharp chin, lean, lovely cheekbones. In answer, Adam sank low enough on the pillows to touch Ronan’s jaw. 

He was still tired. More tired. Sleeping during the trip hadn’t helped. Fatigue darkened his clever eyes, and it slowed him down, transformed him into a younger, softer version of himself.

He murmured; ‘Are you staying here?’

‘No.’ Ronan frowned.

‘Are you taking her back to Monmouth?’ Adam seemed surprised, possibly at the idea that Ronan hadn’t planned that far ahead, probably at the thought of Ronan assuming responsibility for anything.

‘No.’

‘You can’t leave her here alone.’ Adam said gently. ‘You can’t send her with Declan.’

Ronan’s frown morphed into a grimace. He responded emphatically; ‘No.’

What could he do with a child? A magical child, no less? He couldn’t- He could barely-

Without the healing, he’d have been long dead. Without Gansey, probably something worse.

Perhaps he could give her to Gansey. Lifelong parenting goals, no doubt fulfilled, and Ronan would still be able to keep an eye on them both.

Of course, he’d still end up having to take care of her. Gansey would go to school, wander off to art galleries, stay up all night on the DarkNet. And there was absolutely no way Ronan would allow Cheng’s terrible influence anywhere near his…

One drowsy smile, and Ronan realised he’d been pressing Adam’s hand to his mouth, an absentmindedly longing gesture. Parrish was more likely amused by his horrified expression, so he didn’t immediately relinquish his prize.

‘Go to sleep.’ He complained brusquely. ‘You’re not driving my car catatonic.’

Adam snickered.

‘Glass houses…’


	37. Gansey wasn't ready to be an uncle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole week can bite it, frankly.  
> Also, I realise that somehow I have been spelling Grey/Gray inconsistently this whole time and I have no idea why? I can't remember what I actually normally use, but I apologise.  
> Also for the anxiety.

When Ronan Lynch’s BMW nosed into Henry’s garage, Richard Gansey III assumed the worst. Ronan never used the secret entry. He said it made him feel like a wanker.

Reaching the garage from the Foxway passageway, panting and imagining a variety of grim scenarios, the sight wasn’t what Gansey had expected. It was frightening, but not in the gory, traumatising way he’d predicted. Instead, Ronan appeared to have lost his mind.

He was alone, circling the bonnet of his sleek (although prolifically dented) car, and ranting.

Not just ranting in traditional Ronan-style, either, all impressive quantities of swear words and vitriol. By the time Gansey had recovered from running down four flights of stairs and across to the next building, Ronan was ranting in semi-incoherent but incessant stretches of actual _sentences_.

‘I’m not going to leave. I’m _not_ going to leave.’ He kicked one tire moodily. ‘I know. But he asked. He _wanted_ to. No, not because of you.’

Gansey edged closer, already wishing he’d stopped to ask Blue to come with him. He had no hope of containing Ronan on his own, if this was some kind of… insanity.

He searched his memory for a recollection of powered individuals who could induce delusions, hallucinations, temporary mental instability. He measured the possibility that Ronan was blind-drunk and hysterical.

Ronan strode in another circle, undermining the drunk theory. It was impossible to tell if he’d noticed Gansey or not, but he kept talking, at considerable volume. ‘For fuck’s sake, would you stop? Don’t touch that! I wouldn’t be surprised if half the shit in here is explosive.’

Uneasily, Gansey whispered; ‘Ronan?’

Ronan glanced up, lifted one finger in silent caution. He swivelled his gaze over to the line of Henry’s armour. ‘Where the hell are you? What are you going to do, live in the garage? I’m not leaving, dammit, come back over here. You have to meet someone.’

‘No, not someone scary.’

‘Look at him, is he scary? No.’

‘Come _on_ , opal.’

For the life of him, Gansey could not hear any responses in this apparent dialogue, and he was starting to wonder about the probability of a severe head wound. That would hardly have been unlikely with Ronan Lynch, roommate, let alone Ronan Lynch, Widower, vigilante, dramatic figure of vengeance.

Blue appeared around the door and joined Gansey beside Henry’s Audi, beyond which he had not gathered the courage to venture.

‘Is he high?’ She queried sharply.

Gansey shrugged helplessly, and they watched Ronan zig-zag around the suits, engrossed in an attempt to track some imaginary quarry.

Finally, he seemed to get his hands on what he wanted, an empty patch of air behind the Hornet suit which he triumphantly trapped between two palms and pretended to raise above his head.

‘Uh, Ronan?’ Gansey tried again, pleadingly. ‘Is everything… okay?’

Blue snorted indiscreetly beside him.

‘Here.’ Ronan gestured with his hands (supposedly) full. ‘Meet the little one.’

He suddenly seemed to lose the argument with his captive air, and spent a moment wrestling with it. Somehow the hood of his sweater got flipped up over the back of his head, and he cursed.

‘What the actual hell, Lynch?’ Blue interrupted, lifting one spangled hand, and he abruptly froze.

‘Wait. Wait, Sargent. Don’t try anything.’ He made a motion signifying his yield, and sank, uncharacteristically quietly, to the ground.

Gansey shot a wild look over his shoulder, baffled, and Blue returned a look of equal confusion.

A minute passed, and another, in silence, and to Gansey’s disbelief, a tiny girl appeared.

His brain rejected the information, but it didn’t prevent it from being true. There was a child hanging from Ronan’s neck, wilfully curled into his chest and staring with undisguised suspicion at Blue and Gansey.

‘Come on.’ Ronan straightened, easily scooping up the child, and approached. ‘Gansey-’ He pointed. ‘-and Blue. Okay? They’re like us, right? _Family_.’

Gansey gaped. Blue’s dark eyes went wide and alarmed.

‘Ronan Lynch.’ Gansey stammered, when he regained the ability to speak. ‘What in the name of god-?’

‘Opal.’ Ronan responded coolly. The girl clutched his collar tightly and leaned up to his ear. ‘She wants to know if you’ve got any Twizzlers.’

 

 

 

‘The asset’s back.’

‘Mm-hm.’ Colin Greenmantle took the opportunity to swivel in his chair. He was alone, today, his only company the unimpressed voice on the phone line, but that didn’t detract from his amusement. ‘How’s that, now?’

‘Showed up out of nowhere.’ The voice continued. ‘Intact.’

Greenmantle pondered this explanation with a moderately surprised air, until the silence had dragged on long enough to become awkward.

‘And you have nothing else to add?’ He asked curiously.

There was a pause - possibly a hesitation, although Greenmantle wasn’t exactly attempting to be intimidating. ‘No. He just wandered in off the street.’

If Geminae had been handling this, Greenmantle wouldn’t feel a migraine coming on, but there were other problems the assassin needed to deal with.

‘Off the street.’ He sighed. ‘Very well.’

He disconnected the call with gentle disdain, and there was a knock at the office door. Greenmantle turned to face the window, preparing himself for another majestic swivel. If he was able to tolerate furry animals, he might have invested in a cat, just to really indulge the Bond-villain effect this chair was having on his psyche.

‘Enter!’

The door opened. Somebody stepped inside, and calmly navigated to the other side of the desk. Greenmantle knew who it was without looking. He’d sent his secretary (a charmingly terrifying woman with the brisk efficiency of a tyrannical Mary Poppins) home, and his guest lacked Geminae’s silent yet assiduously menacing presence.

‘How is everything progressing?’ He inquired impatiently.

‘They say it’s ready.’ The answer was, as always, placid. ‘Do we have him?’

‘Indeed.’ Greenmantle swivelled, joyfully, and examined his guest. ‘And are you ready?’

A dreamy smile crossed his guest’s face. It would have been unnerving if… no, it _was_ unnerving. ‘Always. Tomorrow?’

Greenmantle frowned faintly, and tried to displace the discomfort his visitor unwittingly evoked. ’No. Thursday, I think. I want to have a conversation with him first.’

The dreamy smile was replaced with vague but calm confusion. ‘Of course. They are sure it’ll work, though.’

Greenmantle blinked thoughtfully. He couldn’t ignore the feeling that it was a shame, after all, to sacrifice Parrish’s mind. The sharpness, the impeccable precision of it. The sheer intellect.

He suspected it would prove necessary, but one last inspection of the terrain never hurt. Parrish was a rational-minded human (entity), after all. There was a minuscule chance he would prove reasonable. Useful.

Even without drastic measures. Which, admittedly, Greenmantle was still extremely excited about undertaking.

One conversation. Just to test the waters. And if that failed, they’d just follow the plan.

 

 

 

Ronan’s little girl was named Opal. She apparently had the ability to camouflage herself (Ronan rolled his eyes and grumbled ‘ _invisibility_ ’) to match her surroundings, a skill which was transferable to most anything she was touching. Ronan insisted this included people, a concept that Gansey had trouble comprehending.

He had trouble comprehending most of this day, though.

He hadn’t seen Ronan since Christmas Eve morning. That was bad enough.

Ronan showing up delusional but intact? That was anxiety-inducing.

Ronan showing up with a child, after an encounter with Declan? _That_ had Gansey sitting at the table in the Foxway kitchen resting his head in his hands. _Overwhelming_. That was the only word that could possibly come anywhere close to describing his day.

Opal was sitting on the edge of the kitchen table. She was in front of the chair Ronan had haphazardly pulled up, dangling her legs over him and occasionally offering him an unsavoury bite of the random selection of food she was consuming.

Gansey couldn’t fathom it.

A child.

A powered child.

And on top of all that, within the space of a day and a half Ronan had somehow developed an understanding with this child that extended to feeding her and interpreting her communicative silences and interrogative glances. _Ronan_ had.

Gansey had always cared about Ronan. He wasn’t ashamed to say it. He loved Ronan.

But Ronan had a complicated relationship with expressions of affection, and that was putting it mildly.

And there was a child, maybe six years old, maybe seven? Anything from four to eight, practically (Gansey wasn’t familiar with determining the age of children). A child who poked Ronan with her little feet (bare, and remarkably tough) and smeared mustard on his face while he scowled at her.

This felt like a heart attack. Gansey was having a heart attack, because Ronan had adopted a child.

Blue seemed just as speechless. She’d open her mouth and start a question; ‘What did- How did- Who- How- What-???’ and then she’d give up and lapse into staring silence.

Naturally, Pythia seemed perfectly comfortable with this development, in their own way. Persephone talked to the girl, Maura found her food, and Calla tutted approvingly as she devoured it unabashedly.

‘Where’s Henry?’ Ronan asked finally, ignoring the foot that was casually tapping a mini-beat on his clavicle. His tone was taut, laden with unspoken demands. Gansey knew what he was asking.

Things had been awful since Adam had taken the internship. Gansey wasn’t sure if it was anger about him getting involved, concern about his safety, or frustration at the lack of progress between Dittley’s condition and tackling Viridiveste. He suspected it was something wound up out of all three, maybe something worse, something that was less Ronan and more Widower, something Gansey didn’t know about.

Whatever it was, it had driven Ronan into worse violence than Gansey had seen since… since Void’s rampage.

Gansey had woken up too many times over the past week to find that Ronan had never come home or had already left again, that there was blood on his sheets, the couch, the doors, the bathroom sink and the shower glass. Gansey had seen every fading bruise and already ageing scar.

When Ronan asked ‘Where’s Henry?’ he meant; ‘Do we have anything?’

Instead of answering; ‘Not really.’ Gansey said; ‘He’s in the lab. He’s working on something to make the uploading faster.’

Ronan’s mouth went thin, his jaw tightened. A piece of cheese was nudged patiently against his lips by an indelicate Opal.

‘Right.’ He said moodily, evading the cheese. ‘I’ll go visit.’

He stood up, scraping the legs of his chair against the floor, and Calla frowned disparagingly at the back of his head, which he ignored. Maura looked away. Persephone looked fretful.

Opal promptly hopped off the table, scrambled up the back of his empty chair, and hooked her hands over his shoulders to climb on his back.

The room was momentarily silent after they’d departed, broken only by Persephone’s hushed murmur; ‘Oh dear.’

 

 

 

Gansey discovered, with unequivocal relief, that Ronan intended to stay at Foxway indefinitely, watching over Opal and “helping” Henry. Gansey offered to bring things for him from Monmouth - Chainsaw, obviously, headphones, clean clothes, sharp objects, ice-cream and candy.

Blue joined him, although neither of them were really able to actually converse for the majority of the journey.

‘Lynch.’ Blue said finally, standing blankly in the Monmouth living room.

Gansey nodded frantically, mirroring her sentiment.

‘With. A child.’ She added dubiously.

‘A child.’ Gansey repeated.

‘Wow.’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, gods.’ She exclaimed abruptly, rapping her own forehead. ‘Orla’s coming back from New York tomorrow.’

Gansey smiled faintly, reflexively, before he realised it was less of a general statement of annoyance and more of a specific concern.

’Surely she’ll leave him be… when she realises he’s… got… he has… there’s a child.’ Gansey stuttered nervously.

‘Sure.’ Blue replied sardonically. ‘Maybe my incredibly self-absorbed cousin and your overwhelmingly volatile roommate are going to be able to live together in one building while she’s all up in his face and he’s pining for the…’ She stopped, involuntarily produced a brief, almost choking sound; ‘… fjords.’

‘What?’ Gansey squinted at her. He wouldn’t have judged Ronan’s mood to be of the pining variety, although, again, Ronan and simple emotions weren’t regular bedfellows. Probably seeing his family made him miserable and nostalgic, but _pining_?

‘Figure of speech.’ Blue amended quickly. ‘Anyway, where’s this raven?’

 

 

 

Unbelievably, Ronan did exactly what he claimed he would. He stayed in Henry’s lab for the evening and overnight, sifting through the documents Adam had already gleaned from VVC’s system while Henry tried to streamline the process of stealing them.

He dragged up one of the armchairs from the lower floor living room so Opal could nap without being separated from him, an action that seemed to earn him Maura’s gentle indulgence and even a slight softening of Calla’s disapproval.

He didn’t sleep. Neither did Henry. Both of them persisted in companionable silence. Gansey continued his work, digging through his records and research and putting together what he could find about the Gray Man, Geminae, the Widower (senior), Noah and Chimera, the pervasive but deeply buried roots in Viridiveste’s underhanded operations.

Blue spent a lot of time in the hospital, and a lot of time on the ground, patrolling the streets.

Henry assisted her when he’d finished his project on Tuesday night, leaving Ronan to work through files in his stead. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas had passed without Gansey feeling even remotely touched by festive feeling. His parents were troubled by his decision not to come home for Christmas, but he assured them it was due to intensity of holiday homework and Ronan’s difficulties during the season, a rather exploitative but necessary excuse.

His gift for Adam sat unopened on the table in Monmouth, and the thought of Adam’s solitary confinement strangled the breath out of him.

Wednesday felt harsh and strained, especially as noon faded into afternoon. Henry had tunnelled between VVC’s external and internal system and presented Adam with a method of transmitting information promptly, under the guise of official company communication. It meant they received more data faster, but when Gansey had asked Henry about the potential safety risks, he’d answered brightly and noncommittally, a Henry special which left Gansey feeling anxious and uncertain.

Orla arrived, too, expressed sweeping affection to everyone present, and retired to her bedroom and the company of her mobile phone.

 

‘What did we get today?’

Henry glanced around from his computer. Ronan didn’t. Opal climbed out of her armchair and onto the desk next to Ronan’s keyboard, keeping Gansey at a safe distance.

Henry nodded, not a little relieved.

‘Finally some details on the machine Whelk and Noah Czerny constructed.’ He explained. ‘A full record of the replica model and the results of concentrating the effect on a single target.’

He opened the documents on one of the many screens. Gansey read them slowly and apprehensively. ‘Molecular dispersion.’ He repeated softly. ‘What does that tell us?’

‘The origin of our friend the Gray Man.’ Henry answered.

’A point he neglected to share.’ Ronan observed acerbically.

Gansey swallowed. ‘Geminae?’

‘Nothing yet.’ Henry admitted. ‘But there is enough here to prove that the company is engaging in illegal and dangerous activity. Adjunct files, too, encrypted emails containing some unpleasant references to physical and mental phenomena surrounding incidents and staff on the Everett project. There’s a curious amount of work - apparently theoretical - on energy conversion. Their biology department appears to have a distinct lack of scruples altogether. Unpleasant matters about lizards, cuttlefish, eels… a veritable menagerie.’

Ronan still hadn’t looked up. His focus, Gansey was reluctant to acknowledge, had an obvious source of inspiration.

Careful fingers tapped Ronan’s shoulder affectionately. She was a pale-skinned creature, his Opal, blue-eyed and even, if Gansey scrunched up his eyes, remotely Lynch-like in appearance. It was too much of a leap, however, to imagine that she was actually a child of Niall Lynch. Ronan hadn’t said anything beyond finding her at home and discovering her powers.

Gansey thought something worse lay beneath his silence. Dread, possibly, or even complete denial.

He’d never met Ronan’s parents, but he didn’t believe that experimentation like this could plausibly be attributed to them.

Henry checked the time, but didn’t say anything. Adam should be out by now, headed home. Another few minutes and Henry would call him, and afterwards Gansey would possibly be able to breathe easily for the first time all day.

 

 

 

Adam was fine, he said. Survived another day.

He didn’t agree that they had enough evidence. He was after more. He was going back.

Gansey’s ability to breathe came and went. Henry didn’t challenge Adam’s decision. Gansey almost snatched the phone, but he couldn’t react fast enough, couldn’t think beyond the sluggishness of fear.

They couldn’t live like this. They couldn’t keep doing this.

 

 

 

Thursday morning dawned overcast. A windy, wet and miserable day.

For the first time, Opal agreed to leave Ronan’s side, and only to sit in the kitchen with Gansey and Blue, while she ate yoghurt and sketched dreamlike portraits, and he found food for the child and formulated plans to handle the oncoming political storm that was superhuman legislation.

Opal tucked into a pile of instant mash for lunch with the cheerful abandonment of a happy lamb.

Calla came into the room, noted Opal’s presence, and suspiciously eyed the corners of the room for Ronan.

‘The spider’s not here.’ She remarked approvingly, and topped up a glass of something which looked suspiciously like gin and tonic. ‘With the exception of the loud one, this place hasn’t been this crowded since-‘

She dropped the glass. It shattered on the floor with a sound shocking in volume and clarity.

Opal was gone so fast Gansey couldn’t tell if she’d camouflaged or bolted or both.

‘The path is set.’ Calla intoned blankly.

Blue was on her feet, staring. ‘Calla?’

‘The path is set.’

Gansey stood up, too, slowly. Blue started scraping the glass off the floor with a forcefield. It had broken into tiny pieces, scattered itself to the very edges of the room.

Calla repeated herself a third time, and closed her eyes.

‘Calla.’ Blue demanded firmly, depositing the majority of the glass in the sink with a gentle clinking noise. ‘Calla, _wake up_.’

Gansey came to his senses at her stern tone, and searched around himself for Opal. She might have been invisible, but either way, she wasn’t in the room.

Calla opened her eyes, her expression wavering between annoyance and distress. ‘You’d better get dressed.’

 

 

 

Gansey went straight to the computer lab.

He got to the outside door in time to see Ronan lunge from his chair. Opal had just pushed through the glass intervening door, and he caught her up and carried her back out again.

Gansey barely caught sight of him before he recognised the expression on Ronan’s face. Fury, tightly woven with despair. A fervent, self-feeding blaze of emotion.

He leaned against the edge of the table, facing the lab. Opal, panicked by the incident in the kitchen, was content to rest her chin on his shoulder and close her eyes.

‘We broke a glass.’ Gansey started hesitantly, navigating the table to stand in Ronan’s eyeline.

His face contorted, and Gansey realised sharply that he was holding back feelings intense enough to bring him to tears. This wasn’t just concern about Opal’s fright.

_Oh, god, Adam._

Gansey weakly turned his attention to the lab, to Henry, who stood up respectfully as he came in.

‘Bad news?’ He could barely speak. He couldn’t breathe.

Henry exhaled. ‘Some bad. Some good.’ He assessed Gansey’s reaction. ‘No word from Parrish, but it’s early yet.’

Gansey’s sigh of relief was irretrievably audible. ‘God. What did you find?’

Henry gestured - the sight Ronan had whisked Opal away from.

They looked like project files. A lot of difficult-to-read handwritten notes, typed and impersonal records, scanned images.

Most of them were of Opal. Most of them were of Opal, even younger, breathtakingly young, doe-eyed and implacably unhappy. In many her skin was splotchy, different splashes of different colours, a mismatched patchwork of patterns and translucence.

Other photographs were of other children. Gansey looked until he couldn’t any more, and Henry carefully removed them from every screen.

‘Project O.P.L.’ He said quietly. ‘She was…’ He swallowed. Gansey reached for his arm. ‘… probably the only surviving subject. They lost her - I mean, she was taken…’

‘Taken?

‘She vanished. According to the notes here, the presiding biologist believed that someone else working for the company found out about the project and broke in to take her.’

Gansey’s breath caught in his throat. ‘Niall?’

Henry didn’t answer, eyes glassy, hands fidgeting over his keyboard.

Niall Lynch had saved the girl. He’d tried to hide her.

Was this the reason-?

The low monitor still displayed the ceaseless upload of files from Adam’s connection. Gansey curled his hand over the solid, warm corner.

‘ _Come back, Adam_.’ He whispered desperately. It was enough. It was too much. ‘ _Please, god, come back_.’


	38. That's what I call a hostile work environment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @MrsGuinevere - A little bit of sexy just for you.

Henry called unexpectedly on Tuesday night. Adam picked up the encrypted phone, a solid brick much more expensive than his own, wrapped in a metallic gold case. He wasn’t entirely sure what had possessed Henry to choose it, and considered asking him, after the purpose of the call had been determined.

‘Evening?’

There was silence, so unusually complete that Adam paused in his rummage through the dresser drawer and straightened up.

‘Henry?’ He pulled the phone away and examined it to see if the call was open. Maybe it was a pocket dial.

A small noise reached him - barely a murmur - but Adam replaced the phone quickly enough to clunk the edge into his temple.

‘ -gainst your head, like that.’

Adam asked; ‘… Lynch?’

A different voice answered, a girl’s stage whisper, as though she thought she was communicating via magic. ‘Adam? Adam Sfone?’

In the background, somebody heaved an aggrieved sigh. Adam nearly laughed. ‘Hi, Opal.’

‘That’s not his _name_.’ Ronan groaned distantly. ‘It’s Parrish. Adam Parrish’s _phone_.’

‘Hi? Parrishisfone?’ Opal repeated obligingly. ‘Are you here?’

‘I’m here.’ Adam answered, trying and failing to conceal his amusement. ‘How are you, Opal?’

‘Hungry.’ She replied brightly. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘I’m okay.’ He shrugged gently. ‘Is Ronan hungry?’

‘Ronan is- ’ There was a brief pause followed by the sound of clicking and an expression of irritation, and finally Ronan grumbling at greater volume. She concluded calmly; ‘- not hungry.’

‘Do you like it there?’ Adam asked. ‘Do you like Gansey and Blue?’

‘I like… ma-ca-ro-ni.’ Opal sounded out carefully. ‘Are you coming? Soon?’

‘Soon.’ He said quietly. It sounded like a lie. He needed to get some sleep, his head was already aching, but even though he’d only seen Opal (and by extension, Ronan) a few hours earlier, the phone in his hand felt like a lifeline to something unspeakably better, safer, warmer than his silent, empty apartment.

She made a small noise that might have been discontent, and there were further noises of a scuffle, interspersed with chirps of childish glee.

He smiled, listening, trying to imagine Ronan playing with her, somewhere safe in the comfortable rooms of Foxway.

‘Parrish.’ Ronan’s voice, only slightly breathless, intolerably victorious. Opal shouting challenges in the background, clattering against things. ‘The mutant says she doesn’t want to talk to you anymore.’

She howled displeasure, and he laughed. Adam pictured him holding the phone out of her reach, enduring her tiny, wrathful and only half-jesting fists on his stomach.

‘She also says she’s keeping all the Twizzlers so you don’t get any.’

’No!’

‘And that she likes Gansey better than you.’

’NO!’

There was a thump and a small period of his laughter and her giggling and creative accusations. Adam sank onto his bed, and pulled his pillow against his chest. He couldn’t hang up. He didn’t want the phone call to end, or the next day to arrive, or Ronan to be out of reach. He sounded alright, actually alright, and a long-buried part of Adam was trying to dig its way out of the ground because of it.

‘Adam.’ The game seemed to be over, Opal seemed to be pacified with some peace-offering of food. The way Ronan said his name made his skin tingle. He’d heard it four… five times before? He closed his eyes and waited for Ronan to repeat it. ‘Adam?’

‘M’here.’

Ronan Lynch was not to be trifled with, but Adam wished they could, trifle, a little bit. Wished they could slow down the descent into chaos and cosmic disorder long enough to flirt harmlessly and fearlessly, to maybe kiss one or twice without feeling like it was some subtle way of prolonging the inevitable demise of one or both of them.

He couldn’t name the feeling that threatened to consume him when Ronan said his name like that. He didn’t know where to begin, or how. It seemed entirely unrelated to the fragile and wary gratefulness evoked in the past by people expressing interest in him. It was painfully dissimilar to the endlessly degrading disappointment of loving something without any reciprocation.

It wasn’t the pure, bright thing a much younger and naive Adam had imagined was requited affection. It felt curiously dangerous, as though acknowledging it was akin to unleashing inner anarchy. Beyond the risk that naming it was presumptuous or would immediately prompt its disappearance, there was the strange fear that it was something that once released could never be contained, controlled, rationalised, or terminated.

There was something dark about it.

It didn’t make him crave it any less.

‘Parrish, are you sleeping?’

‘No.’ He should have been. Instead he was imagining Ronan’s arms, shoulders, back. His tattoo, his glowing skin. The memory of Monday morning was still fresh, but Adam wanted to live dangerously. If the light had been firelight, like that night at the airstrip, he could have traced every curve of Ronan’s skin as the flames cast shadows across them. He could have discovered if Ronan had scars that hadn’t vanished. He could have spent hours gliding his hands up Ronan’s long legs, grazing his muscles, sinew under pale gossamer skin, hip bones that Adam would sink his teeth into-

‘You should have seen Gansey’s face.’ Ronan continued, stirring Adam from unmitigated lust. ‘He still hasn’t recovered.’

Adam nodded, tried to think beyond finding the deep hum of Ronan’s voice desperately attractive. His own answer was a scratchy mumble. ‘He’s had a rough few weeks.’

‘Yeah, no shit.’ Ronan took a breath, paused… but didn’t end the call. ‘He’ll get used to it, right. He seems like the fatherly sort.’

Adam frowned mildly, sleepily. Gansey seemed like the teenager-y sort. A bit intense, definitely. A bit intelligent. Probably a bit too forcibly responsible. Not fatherly… although Adam’s conception of fatherliness had a degree of aggression in it Ronan’s might not share. ‘He’s seventeen.’

Ronan snorted derisively. ‘But he’s got the mind of a soccer-mom.’

Adam chuckled, and there was another brief pause. Ronan repeated his name - like he knew, or perhaps because he couldn’t stop himself from checking, and Adam made an indistinct noise of appreciation.

’Say goodbye.’ Ronan said softly, and Adam opened his mouth to argue, _no, really, he was awake_ , but Opal’s voice interjected a muffled “Goodbye” (around a mouthful of food, no doubt) and he restricted himself to answering her.

Then peaceful silence, and the sound of Ronan breathing, quietly, a little self-conscious.

Eventually, Ronan spoke, describing the events of the afternoon, trying to get Opal to meet Gansey and Blue, the anguish of having to put up with Henry, the boredom of picking through masses of Viridiveste’s surface-level unencrypted garbage-files.

Adam didn’t want to close his eyes, relinquish consciousness, but he did.

 

 

 

_Ronan had dropped him in an empty carpark near the river, as Adam had asked. He didn’t refuse, but Adam thought for a moment that he would. For a moment, he hoped so._

_But Ronan hadn’t argued. He’d scowled and accelerated and cursed out a few other drivers instead._

_Opal had sat quietly in the backseat, chewing on… something. Listening to him, intrigued but not alarmed, glancing between the back of his head and Adam’s face, when he turned to check on her._

_So when they’d pulled up, Adam hadn’t expected anything less than the cold dismissal he received. He’d opened his door and climbed out, but Opal had followed him, clambering into the front of the car and snatching at the back of his clothing - his jacket and the pocket of his jeans - and whining an unexpectedly grief-stricken noise._

_Startled, he’d paused._

_She couldn’t understand where he was going. Why was he leaving? Why did he have to go? Why shouldn’t he stay?_

_Ronan had adjusted to the surprise a little faster, and attempted to detach her grip, ordering her back into the backseat, but Adam had just stood silently, waiting to be released, wondering why he couldn’t put a reasonable explanation into words._

_The internship… fighting Viridiveste, fighting Greenmantle… it was about helping Ronan. It was about freeing Ronan from his private hell… so he could be safe._

_So he could be Adam’s._

_But Ronan was already right there, in the car, wrestling with his determined (and apparently grimly strong) little companion, and in place of Adam’s resolve there was the fresh insurmountable pain of walking away, deep dual lacerations of regret and longing._

_Ronan had gotten her little grip loose by pulling her onto his leg, soothing her, Adam thought, with insincere remonstrations and gentle reminders that there were other people to meet, others like Adam who would amuse and entertain her._

_And Adam had carefully closed the door and started heading in the direction of his apartment. A good many blocks away, but hopefully that would prevent Greenmantle’s minions from tracking him back here._

_He’d gotten a few hundred metres away when something stopped him._

_At first he thought it was Opal, catching his clothing again, because when he turned he couldn’t see anything, but there was definitely something dragging at his jacket._

_The narrow thread of web made his heartbeat skitter, a little rapid pulse of anxiety and anticipation. The Widower, his Widower._

_Ronan._

_Ronan had discarded the indifference swiftly and completely, and had jogged to catch up, until he was close enough to touch, close enough for Adam to clutch the fabric of his jacket._

_Ronan had slipped one hand behind Adam’s neck, pressed his forehead against Adam’s, told him to stay._

_No._

_Ronan ignored him, kissed him, repeated the demand._

_It hadn’t changed his mind. The converse… it just strengthened his conviction that his choice had been the right one._

 

 

 

A combination of exhaustion and anxiety fractured Adam’s focus for most of Wednesday. Elizabeth commented that he looked tired, and he arbitrarily entered an office that had nothing to do with his work, but otherwise he scraped by. The only incidents of any note were Henry’s upgrade adding a new sliver of dread to the sharp stabbing fears in his gut, and the sudden appearance of Greenmantle in the laboratory after lunch.

He was pondering the strange calmness of the staff here. He’d been working for five days, now, on- and off-site. Scientists, doctors and professors had offered mild corrections here and there, or kernels of advice on principles involved in the research. Nobody had shouted, nobody had criticised anything he’d said or done, or anything anyone else had said or done.

It made him nervous, suspicious. Huxley, Atwood, Wyndham and Orwell had left him wary of apparent tranquillity.

‘Mr. Parrish.’

Adam dipped his head lower over the fluorometer, restraining his automatic reaction of moderate panic.

‘Sir.’ He looked up. ‘Dr. Savill-’

The supervising scientist was nowhere in sight. In fact, Adam couldn’t see anyone within ten feet of them in any direction.

‘Yes.’ Greenmantle flapped one hand dismissively. ‘How are you finding it?’

‘Incredible.’ Adam lied.

‘Silveira informs me that you have been making an excellent impression.’ Greenmantle managed to deliver this compliment with complete indifference. His gaze was relaxed, but thorough. Adam had a horrible sensation of being read, and he suppressed the urge to think sidelong about the device plugged into his computer.

Adam thanked him quietly, but Greenmantle didn’t leave. He was just slightly taller than Adam, and broader, but there was nothing overtly threatening about him other than an air of complete self-assurance.

Greenmantle emanated power. Adam wondered what the ladies of Pythia would have to say about him.

‘You’ll consider us when you graduate, I hope.’ Greenmantle continued, his tone considerably more certain than hopeful. ‘We undertake research on the forefront of almost every field.’

There was a moment of silence, as Adam nodded politely, and Greenmantle added; ‘For example, one of my leading scientists has developed an enduring fascination with the sudden proliferation of superhumans in our society. It might take a few years to get out of development, but I’m building a team for it.’

It took every ounce of self-control in Adam’s possession to keep his manner lightly curious when he answered; ‘Studying superhumans?’

‘Yes.’ Greenmantle absently checked his watch. ‘It’s populist, I’ll admit, but the genetic potential of some of these individuals surpasses anything previously imagined in serious scientific research.’

Adam glanced at the fluorometer attentively. ‘That would be fascinating.’ He agreed. ‘The practical applications of some claimed powers would be limitless.’

‘Yes. It will sustain substantial progress.’

The hair on the back of Adam’s neck stood on end. He fought the urge to think about Ronan.

_It will sustain substantial progress. Will?_

Was Greenmantle trying to provoke him? Trying to elicit a reaction? Bringing up superhumans was too specific, too deliberate. He knew about the Widower, did he know that Adam knew about Geminae?

Finally, Greenmantle’s mouth curved into a smile, charming and easy. ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Parrish.’

‘Good afternoon, sir.’

Adam watched him walk away, and turned back to the bench, waiting for the tension to subside from his limbs.

 

 

 

He’d spoken to Declan only twice at the airstrip. Once when Declan had offered him the bedroom. Once beforehand, when they’d both entered the Lynches’ study/laboratory.

_Adam hadn’t needed to ask Declan what he wanted to ask. The elder Lynch had just known._

_He’d turned in the doorway before leaving Adam to search._

_‘Power fucks people up.’_

_Adam had hesitated. It was practically the first time Declan had acknowledged him, and he hadn’t been sure he was prepared for it._

_Declan continued; ‘You should know that. Just look at Ronan. That... girl. Dad.’_

_‘You have power.’ Adam had responded quietly. ‘And Matthew.’ And Blue. And even Henry._

_Declan had snorted. ‘Power? I can tell you if the mail has arrived, not throw someone through a goddamn window.’ He’d sighed. ‘If it doesn’t kill you, other people will try.’_

 

 

 

Henry called in the evening to tell him that the day’s work had been fruitful. He and Ronan (unlikely co-conspirators) hadn’t managed to pull apart everything Adam had taken, but they’d gone for the encrypted files first, which had delayed them but returned reasonable rewards.

‘The Gray Man was one of Viridiveste’s experiments.’ Henry told him with factual ease. ‘The intended result of the duplicate Everett machine.’

Adam hummed uneasily. Noah’s work, and Whelk’s, and the blueprints for such a device were still extant.

‘There’s more. I must say I don’t really know where to start, but it is enough to… sink the company.’

Henry wasn’t alone. Adam sensed it from the way he moderated his tone, withheld his personal curiosity about the effectiveness of the new software, about the additional suspicion it might have been attracting. He thought it might have been Ronan nearby, and the idea that Henry would limit his concern gave him an extra reason to be grateful… but he needed more details about the files.

‘Anything on the Lynches?’ He asked quietly. ‘On Opal?’

Henry huffed thoughtfully, but there was a pause before he answered. ‘No.’

His tone was designed to mislead, Adam suspected, and he realised it was Gansey who was listening, not Ronan. Gansey was the one Henry was guarding from unnecessary worry.

_Please let Ronan still be there. Please._

‘Greenmantle?’

‘No.’ Henry didn’t hesitate, this time. He’d recognised Adam’s point, and he wasn’t going to ignore it. ‘We have more to decrypt, Adam. We have evidence.’

‘I can’t…’ _Stop. Quit. Give up._ He didn’t ask if Ronan was around, despite wanting to. If Ronan wanted to talk to him, if he could, he would. ‘Good night, Henry.’

’Good luck, Adam.’

 

 

 

Adam was almost asleep when the phone rang.

It was testament to Ronan’s (usually disregarded) self-control that his priority was telling Adam about Opal’s decision to eat the pot plant in the downstairs hall.

Adam listened, chuckled gently, expressed sympathetic concern. Ronan ranted about spending fourteen hours in a confined space with Henry Cheng (who deemed pants to be an optional social convention). He elaborated on the difficulties of trying not to piss himself laughing when Gansey had tripped and fallen down a few stairs into Orla’s arms and Blue had nearly gone thermonuclear. He shared in vivid detail how he’d tried to teach Chainsaw to fly into the neighbour’s building and steal peanuts from their dining table.

He didn’t mention Viridiveste, or his parents, or Adam’s sentence, and Adam was painfully relieved.

More than once Adam caught himself wishing Ronan would invite himself over, threaten to stop him, threaten to leave him, and every time he didn’t Adam knew that he admired Ronan a little bit more.

He was half-asleep again, murmuring ‘hm’ and ‘ah’ along to Ronan’s stories, and he almost missed when Ronan trailed off into silence.

‘Ron’n?’

‘Parrish.’ A sigh. Adam thought Ronan might have reached his limit. ‘You remember, right?’

In fact, Adam did remember. The memory was always, when thinking of Ronan, lingering somewhere close to the surface. ‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ He moved on to a colourful rendition of the time Gansey’s Pig broke down halfway to school and Ronan had found him nine hours later in a Buddhist temple.

 

 

 

It rained while Adam was trying to reach VVC the next morning, and he wondered momentarily if Henry had waterproofed his devices, immediately reminding himself that this was Cheng, for pity’s sake, and he must have been tired.

He replaced the device in the back of his computer.

There would have to be something eventually, something hidden in the depths of the system. He’d stay long enough to dig it up, long enough to get an answer for Ronan. It wasn’t as though he could just leave the internship before it was finished, anyway. He’d be pulled up in front of Koehn and threatened with expulsion before he could so much as blink.

The day dragged past, but Adam had already retrieved the button when Silveira intercepted him on the way to the lobby.

Adam stopped, controlled the temptation to check the front of his duffel.

‘Mr. Silveira.’ His stomach plummeted.

‘Mr. Parrish.’ SIlveira answered. ‘Colin mentioned you might be interested in the program we’re developing.’

It took Adam a second to realise who he meant, and another to understand _what_ he meant. He forced himself to nod with as much composure as he could muster. It wasn’t about the coat, thank god, it wasn’t about him.

Silveira waved him out into the spacious, busy lobby. Entire departments were making their way home, and security was rapidly processing people out of the building with the practiced skill of experts.

Silveira’s office was attached to a little corridor in a niche behind the reception desk (or rather, the second reception desk, for people who had already managed to make it past the five point security check and the stern, slightly contemptuous gaze of the gentleman at the first reception desk). It was behind a sturdy and attractive door with his name printed across the front in bronze lettering.

The room itself was large and comfortably furnished. Adam hadn’t expected Colin Greenmantle to be sitting in one of the guest chairs, his fingers steepled together thoughtfully in front of his chin.

Hovering in one corner, pretending to inspect Silveira’s framed degree while shooting sidelong, awed glances as Greenmantle, there was zoologist Josh. He shot a look of impressed alarm in Adam’s direction.

‘Mr. Silveira, you wanted to see me?’

Silveira acknowledged Josh briskly, and he took the opportunity to edge towards Adam under the guise of offering a collegial handshake.

‘I’ve recommended you both for a trial research group.’ Silveira explained sagely. ‘You can take the exploration files with you this weekend, and next week we’ll convene and discuss the actual prospects of funding a team.’

Adam nodded, again. It might have been a little curt - he was struggling not to wipe the palms of his hands on his jeans, struggling not to look guilty, or too interested, or too averse. Greenmantle’s eyes glimmered with amusement, and Adam was struck, with startling clarity, by how much he distrusted him, despised him.

Silveira withdrew a stunningly dense file from his desk drawer, and leaned across to hand it to Adam. It must have been as thick as a textbook, swathes of notes, printed papers, documents, all cased in a pretentious leather binder with a small leather catch Adam had to undo before he could fold it open.

He was ashamed to feel both irritated by the binding and esteemed by it, and then he was struck by the baffling recognition of his own face as the first item on the stack of documents inside.

Quickly, he realised his ID picture must have been used to signify his interest in the project, but as he lifted the photograph back the first sentence underneath sank into his stomach like a fist.

_Parrish, A. Demonstrates manifestations of psychic faculty esp. extreme fluctuations in electromagnetic output._

Josh leaned forward to read over his shoulder. Adam looked up, sickly realising that Greenmantle and Silveira were both watching him with unremarkable expressions, boredom and patience respectively, and his throat closed up.

There was a silence which seemed to last for an eternity between Adam contemplating running and fighting back absolute terror, and dissolved only when pain shot through his skull and took his legs out from under him.

Breathing became a series of disconnected gasps.

His heart burned.

He cried, or perhaps the world turned to a rippling, uneven surface.

The initial shock (electricity? more of a jolt than anything Adam had felt before) wore off fairly swiftly, but Adam still couldn’t move. He could see his blue coat, being folded carefully away.

A hand dug in the pocket of his slacks and passed off his phone, wallet, keys…

Another pulled the ID card on the lanyard over his head (he was kneeling, he thought, but then someone must have been holding him up).

Someone - Greenmantle, he realised with horror - said; ‘Escort Mr. Parrish home.’ The blue coat moved away… the dangling lanyard… a set of legs, too. Silveira’s?

He couldn’t breathe. He tried, and the wheeze of his own attempt was a horribly muted sound.

He thought; _help! HELP!_ The panic was overwhelming. One second he could see Greenmantle’s approving expression, and the next second half his vision was just floor.

Someone rolled him slightly. Josh. He patted Adam’s head. ‘Don’t worry…’ He sounded as though he was underwater, but his face presented a gentle, placid smile. ‘… it’ll be over before you know it.’


	39. Love means sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh. Yeah. It's a little dark, and pretty twisted.   
> Did anyone really actually think I was a nice person?

Colin Greenmantle watched.

The process was called, officially, “Indexing.” Joshua Swan had been indexed eight months earlier, after the incident with the eels had bestowed on him uncommon influence over electricity and even more uncommon mental instability.

Viridiveste Corp. hadn’t needed a laboratory to determine that trauma and electricity were not a good mix. Fortunately, though bright, Swan’s emotional upheaval and abrupt descent in psychosis had left him perfectly willing to accept Greenmantle’s offer of a psychotherapeutic cure.

He hadn’t struggled.

And courtesy of Swan, nobody who had gone through the procedure since had struggled either.

None of them had been as powerful as Parrish, though. Or as promising.

Silveira was dispatched with Parrish’s belongings and ID card to his apartment, while Swan and a security guard carried Parrish along the narrow corridor and down a stairway to the building sub-basement. Within two hours he would be expected at his workplace, a rather dingy supermarket in his neighbourhood, mere pictures of which made Greenmantle want to get a tetanus shot.

Within two hours the procedure would be underway, but with a mind as complex as Parrish’s, it would likely be underway for a good seven or eight hours more.

Nevertheless, questions were bad for business, and blame was worse, so Adam Parrish (concept) was going home after his internship shift, carefully putting aside his phone, ID, keys, lounging on the sofa for a little while, and then failing to report for work. Adam Parrish (being) was getting dragged through a reinforced steel door underground and lifted onto a surgical table.

Dragged was such a graceless word. Greenmantle preferred… manoeuvred.

The first shock rendered Parrish helpless until he was on the table. He’d gradually started clutching at Swan’s wrist with unresponsive fingers in an attempt to convey his dismay as they’d moved downstairs, but when the long arrays of overhead lights in the operation room began to flicker, Swan cautiously gave him another little zap.

It was a complicated situation.

Greenmantle didn’t want to take chances with the potential strength of Parrish’s psychokinesis - that was why he’d had them modify the machine. Additional energy output, up to the instant neuorimaging, extra restraints, a backup generator, and a room so heavily plated it could have taken a missile.

Greenmantle wasn’t foolish enough to try and occupy the same room. Instead he’d had a narrow viewing window of layered bulletproof glass placed in the wall between the operation room and the observation room next door, where he now stood. If it had been possible, he would have instructed the human cattle prod to keep Parrish subdued, or ordered a morphine drip, but both sedation and electric shocks interfered with the Indexer. This left the three scientists conducting the procedure at Parrish’s mercy if the machine didn’t take effect quickly enough, but he wasn’t particularly concerned. One or two of them had been indexed themselves, and there were countless more in other departments Greenmantle could replace them with if they didn’t make it.

There were leather straps for Parrish’s ankles, wrists, elbows and chest. Electrodes for his temples and forehead, and a belt to stop him from biting his tongue in half.

There was a defibrillator pack on the wall, in case his heart gave out, and the machine they folded over his face projected images of his brain for observation in case he suffered a stroke or an aneurysm.

Casualties, Greenmantle was proud to say, had been rare.

But they had… _been_. Unfortunately.

Swan withdrew from the operation room, sealing the heavy door behind himself, and joined Greenmantle next door.

‘He didn’t see us coming.’ He noted, as enthusiastic as a cinema goer remarking upon movie previews. ‘Not telepathic at all, then?’

Greenmantle sighed. This was not the first time he’d made that comment, and it was undoubtedly not going to be the last. “Psychic” in Swan’s (admittedly now quite vacant) mind meant “Professor X” and silent communication. For Greenmantle, it meant a person who didn’t need to throw their weight around (like Whelk) in order to throw weight around.

And if the indexing succeeded, Parrish would retain all that power and none of his strange, obtuse independence, and he would, like Swan, be all the happier for it. In essence, Parrish would be a calm, powerful weapon, directed entirely by Greenmantle’s whim.

The indexer had the secondary function of skirting problematic barriers like entrenched memories and ingrained habits, which left the outward shell of identity and personality mostly intact. Although it took away the drives, desires and motivations that made up Adam Parrish, it left the appearance of them, as well a few surface habits, orderliness, perhaps, or a particular mannerism like scratching his nose, or a peculiar fondness for cherries.

Of course, anyone particularly close to him would easily recognise that the true Parrish, the majority of him, was no longer present… but Geminae had already assured Greenmantle that Parrish had no one close.

It was almost pathetic that the Widower had been the closest thing to a friend Adam Parrish had ever obtained, but enough of Parrish’s life had been mapped out in front of Greenmantle to make the friendship seem rational.

This was another advantage specific to Parrish. If he was indexed, he would willingly share his knowledge of the Widower. If he truly lacked that knowledge, as Geminae suggested, then Parrish would merely incapacitate the Widower and hand him in. Greenmantle was already tasting the victory of his plan - using the Widower’s own beloved pet human against him, by leaving his unusually distinct personality just intact enough to evade suspicion.

The added jolt started to wear off and the white-masked doctors (or scientists, or both, Greenmantle didn’t recollect) started to hurry around the room, fixing another electrode here, tightening the machine’s grip on Parrish’s skull there. His wrists twisted in the straps, fingers skittering across the steel table.

The pressure hurt. Greenmantle had heard many people claim this.

It was nothing compared to what would follow.

Swan leaned forward attentively as they primed the switch, waiting for the inevitable shudder of pain (occasionally accompanied by a high, tremulous wail somehow escaping from around leather clenched between teeth).

Nothing happened.

The doctors/scientists scurried some more, keenly aware of Greenmantle’s presence in the next room. The neurological maps lit up and pulsed with a vibrant range of colours and patterns, and Parrish squirmed.

Greenmantle tipped his head, undecided between amusement and faint annoyance. He looked away from the window, and turned the binder in his hands… Parrish’s file, which Greenmantle had scooped from the floor after the boy had dropped it.

He’d already read everything inside (some parts more than twice). He’d been prepared for this event.

When Adam Parrish had been nine, he’d been sent to the school counsellor (not a psychiatrist, of course, because he’d still been in a public school), after showing up to class with unaccountable bruises on his face and arms. He’d been sent to the counsellor every day for three weeks, and intermittently sent back over the next two years.

The conclusion the counsellor had drawn after the first week had been reworded and repeated in every comment made afterwards. _Adam Parrish will not be led_.

Greenmantle had it, in ink, under his hands (it was embarrassingly easy to compile this boy’s life into one, pitiful leather file). He’d read the same sentence repeatedly over the previous few days. He’d foreseen the importance of it.

At nine, Parrish had refused to countenance the idea of discussing his father’s prolific and presumably unjustified abuse. He’d never permitted a single accusation to go unrejected, he’d never accepted a single theoretical proposal that he might have been scared, or hurt, or damaged, when he was undeniably all three. He’d never admitted to his father having a single fault.

The school could do nothing unless Parrish made an accusation, and so nothing had been done. He would not be led.

Now, restrained and subjugated, Parrish still refused to fight back, and simultaneously refused to yield.

The possibility had been raised several times during the preparation for this procedure, that maybe Parrish was unaware of what he was doing, of what he was capable of. Greenmantle enjoyed the idea immensely - the concept that he’d walked into the trap like an innocent moth to a flame - but he wasn’t convinced. Parrish wasn’t the type to take his opportunities for granted, and he certainly wasn’t the type to leave his own abilities unexamined.

Now, clearly, he was exercising some control. Shielding himself from the machine somehow (electromagnetic interference?). A barricade, rather than an attack. He would lie still and prevent them from breaking into his consciousness until the exhaustion killed him, unless they could loosen his grip.

Greenmantle pulled over a chair, and settled into it with a leisurely sigh. He’d predicted this. Planned for it. It was chess, essentially. Most of life was chess, and Greenmantle was always primed to be twelve moves ahead.

There was a microphone embedded next to the window. He took his time, pondering the innocuous sheets of paper under his fingers, the unstitching of Adam Parrish, thread by thread.

He said eventually, languidly;‘There’s no point fighting it, Adam.’

One of Parrish’s feet, clad in shined black shoes which still betrayed their scruffiness, twitched miserably.

‘You’ve been fighting for so long.’ Greenmantle continued, voice laced with mocking pity. ‘Remember 2010… Was it the school nurse who took you to the hospital for that broken collarbone?’

A leg trembled. A small segment of Parrish’s brain fluctuated from orange to red, and his neck strained in an aborted attempt to jerk his head.

‘Or 2012, and the fractured jaw?’ Greenmante needled, deeply pleased. He’d chosen an effective method. Slow, but that didn’t subtract from the enjoyment of victory. ‘Or the leg in 2006?’

Next to Greenmantle, Swan’s head tipped, watchful, instinctive, like an animal. He was fascinated with the picking apart of humanity, as Greenmantle was, but it was more an effect of the indexing than a feature of his original personality. His fascination was due to childlike curiosity and an absent moral compass, and Greenmantle’s was due to a well-matured familiarity with cruelty and power.

People nowadays didn’t understand power. They toyed with money and relationships and concepts of moral superiority, when the truth lay in something a hell of a lot more fundamental. Strength. Defensible strength. The ability to torture a person, unopposed, to force an individual (a fully rational, functional, independent human being) to act according to your wishes, especially if it directly opposed their own.

That kind of capacity was true power, and gloriously addictive. The creation of the Indexer had been the realisation of a dream for Colin Greenmantle. He sometimes allowed himself the vain fantasy that half the population, one day, would be indexed, would be within his possession.

The other half would have to remain free, of course, because power was no fun unless there were people over which to exercise it.

So many people had been lost, beforehand, because he had lacked the capacity to contain them. So many had to be unnecessarily discarded or eliminated to make sure they didn’t talk, didn’t stir up trouble, when all the time the right method for converting them to the cause had been buried in some genius’s disused gray matter.

Greenmantle flipped, relaxedly, to another entry in the file. He was measuring the affective impact of two phrases “dumped like garbage” and “discarded like trash” (leaning towards the latter - “trash” was so strongly reminiscent of Parrish’s unsophisticated ancestry that it was hardly a question which would strike harder) when a soft but irritating bleat permeated the walls of his room.

Swan glanced up, head cocked. ‘That’s the security alarm.’

Greenmantle frowned, frustrated. ‘Sort it out, then.’ Swan smiled effortlessly and went slinking into the corridor.

This did happen. Some moron would forget to take their keys out of their pocket when they went through the security gate and then… chaos. For a building full of brilliant scientists, it was an unexpectedly hard task to find a smart individual amongst them.

‘Let’s talk about your mother, now. Did she leave because of you?’ Another eruption of crimson through Parrish’s fragile brain. ‘It’s incredible, really, the two people who made you, and you couldn’t convince either of them to like you even just a tiny amount.’

He’d punctured the shield, momentarily but adequately. Parrish whimpered, the brain scans burned red, and he twisted on the table.

Greenmantle savoured it. Adam Parrish, the unbefitting arrogance of youth and impoverishment. It would have been a shame if he’d surrendered his free will easily. It was so much more satisfying when there was something to take by force.

He registered the shadow before there was a noise. A feeling of unease, perhaps, that drew his gaze across the room to the closed door - and in front of it, the dark clad figure.

The fear response was an unpleasant shock… Greenmantle hadn’t experienced fear for several years, but now, alone with a creature as dark as perception permitted, he felt it gnaw at him with unfamiliar tenacity.

‘Turn it off.’

The Widower. The voice was metallic, but Greenmantle felt intuitively that the emotionless timbre arose from fury rather than distortion. He didn’t move.

The vigilante stepped forward. A graceful, threatening tread. Seeing him in the flesh was like seeing a rare animal, something cherished and resented for its status in the animal kingdom. ‘Let him go.’

Swathes of red morphed and blurred into orange, even yellow. The microphone was still transmitting. Parrish could hear his loyal saviour. His despair was retreating.

’Take off the mask.’ Greenmantle offered a riposte, even as he rose, unnaturally alarmed, from his chair. ‘If it’s so important to you, trade your identity.’

The Widower moved closer, violence promised by every motion. ‘I’ll kill you either way.’

Greenmantle forced himself to shrug, backing around the chair. ‘Admirable confidence.’ To his amazement, the figure reached up, and pulled off the mask with one hand.

Most of Greenmantle’s attention was too busily focused on the fact that Niall Lynch was _here_ to realise that the door was opening again. His automatic response to the overly familiar, sharp featured face, blue eyes, twisted sneer, was a disbelieving snort.

_So it had been Lynch… Lynch? The Lynch boy… but that meant… Niall, that bastard, and he’d kept the findings to himself… smug, self-righteous asshole, he’d used the research to further his own ambitions… that prick, that worthless piece of-_

‘You have three seconds before I disembowel you.’ Lynch snarled, and Greenmantle merely raised an eyebrow.

There was a crackle of energy, but the Lynch boy wasn’t as foolish as he looked. One swift roll and Swan’s jagged spear of electricity singed through the empty air where he’d been and blasted the chair in which Greenmantle had been sitting.

Greenmantle backed up (but with dignity) against the far wall, and Lynch turned his vicious gaze on his new opponent.

So Aurora and Niall’s son was the pernicious Widower? It made a certain tasteless sense. The same egotism, obviously, the same self-certainty.

His obsession with Parrish, then, extended into the realms of legitimate friendship?

And Parrish hadn’t known? Unless he had, which made Greenmantle want, excessively badly, to stab through his defences again and rip his mind out. He had the overwhelming desire to take Parrish from the Lynch boy and use him as a taunt, perhaps a transferred longing to throw his success in the face of this duplicate-Niall.

Swan had engaged the Widower with careless eagerness. The room smelled like ozone and smoke, and the side of the chair sizzled and smouldered quietly. He blackened a patch of wall with another bolt, and nearly annihilated half the metal door frame, but the Widower evaded him smoothly, carefully keeping his distance, gaze snagging on the narrow window but never completely being caught by Parrish’s imprisonment.

He used small projectile webs, quick-witted enough to avoid giving Swan a direct line of conductivity, and between the two of them dodging around the room Greenmantle didn’t have an chance of reaching the door, and even the figures in the operation room were stirring uneasily at the sound of the fight.

Swan circled around, trying to get an angle on the Widower, which left him closer to Greenmantle and both of them pinned in by Lynch.

If Lynch was the Widower, and Parrish had known, the odds were that they both knew about Niall, too. That would explain Parrish’s secrecy, but what in god’s name had made him think of accepting the internship?

Greenmantle had the horrendous sensation that he was being played, somehow, and he did not like it.

Swan lunged at the Widower, fingers outstretched and sparking, and his target easily ducked by him, twisting on one leg to plant a ruthless heel in the side of his jaw. Swan staggered, stunned, but the Widower stumbled too, caught off guard by the ragged burst of electricity received on contact. It didn’t affect him as badly as Parrish, and after a second he regained his balance.

Both of them seemed to reach the same conclusion. The Widower had the advantage of strength, speed, reflexes… but Swan was natural disaster in the making. If either of them was going to win, they’d have to gain the upper hand at close quarters. They grappled, the Widower’s sheer speed enough to take the momentum out of Swan, but that didn’t prevent electricity from bringing Lynch to his knees.

Greenmantle edged towards the window, quashing panic as Lynch dragged Swan down with him, face a mask of savage perseverance.

He was running out of patience, now. Either Swan killed the Widower and Greenmantle had a full victory (assuming that they broke Parrish without destroying him), or the Widower killed Swan and tried to reach Parrish, threatening Greenmantle too, or Greenmantle pushed the matter and risked an unsuccessful outcome with Parrish in order to defeat Lynch.

The Widower planted both feet (he was the most resilient entity Greenmantle had seen since Whelk was young and invincible) on Swan’s chest and kicked him into the wall, leaving the room in a wheezing pause as both of them tried to recover. The Widower suit was slightly charred, and Lynch was unsteady, disoriented. Swan was bleeding, and more than a little battered, but the only thing that would stop him trying to protect Greenmantle was death.

Greenmantle’s hand had been forced. His superhuman bodyguard didn’t have the Widower’s healing capacity, so one good blow from Lynch could unceremoniously resolve the fight.

‘Turn it up.’ He muttered curtly. ‘Accelerate everything.’

There were a few anxious glances from the operation room, but in the end, always obedience. If that didn’t destroy Parrish’s shield, nothing would. It would probably wreck his brain, of course, when it finally got through to it, but sometimes even strong pieces had to be sacrificed in a proper game of chess.

Swan righted himself and shakily launched back into combat. Lynch awkwardly tried to evade him, and settled for punching him in the ribs when that failed. Directionless electricity crackled through the air around both of them, but the Widower managed to wrestle Swan into a headlock, white and shaking from the energy burning through him.

It occurred to Greenmantle that the suit might have been insulating him from the worst of it, and this suspicion was swiftly supported by Lynch’s reaction to Swan swinging one hand back against the side of his head to try and dislodge his stranglehold on Swan’s neck.

He made a noise through gritted teeth that was vaguely reminiscent of an animal being slaughtered in the depths of hell… but he didn’t let go.

Commotion beyond the window caught Greenmantle’s horrified attention, and after a moment of stupefied staring, he realised that Parrish had finally snapped.

The brain scan pulsed with colour, yellow, orange, red, and he shuddered violently as the increased output of the machine flooded his neurons. If he made a sound, Greenmantle didn’t hear it.

The additional energy through the Indexer hadn’t been the source of success, but it proceeded to tear Parrish’s mind apart. The lights in both rooms dimmed and surged with unexpected intensity, and Greenmantle shrank away from the window.

Lynch’s growl cut off into staccato gasps for air, and he looked upwards, eyes hazy with pain and distress. Swan garbled some protest, and increased his efforts to break free.

Parrish hadn't just been the Widower’s vulnerability. The Widower had been his.

Damaging one would incapacitate the other… Greenmantle could still win.

Swan fought loose from the Widower’s grip and upright, listing badly and gulping in oxygen. Lynch couldn’t get steady either. He struggled to make it into a crouch, dazedly searching for the window.

The room was dark, then too bright, then dark again. Greenmantle wanted to snatch at Swan, tell him to deal with the Widower, but the boy was still sparking at the edges like a frayed wire, too woozy to listen or stand up straight.

The lights brightened to a painful degree, held for a couple of moments too long, and through the glass behind Swan, Greenmantle saw Parrish’s limbs jerk against the restraints, muscles straining with any residual strength he had, and his fingers curl into narrow fists.

The room exploded.

 

 

 

Greenmantle had never experienced an earthquake while underground, but he thought it might have felt something like that. Everything seemed to warp around him, the concrete walls, chunks of metal pipe, bundles of electricity cables, and the great plates of steel that were ripped from the reinforced walls and bent into unrecognisable shapes.

He lost his footing - or he was knocked off his feet - and struck the back wall. The lights went out (or blew up?) casting the room into horrifyingly complete darkness.

It took a minute or so for the backup generators to come online, and everything went disaster-light-red. All Greenmantle could hear was a hum, punctured now and then by muted sounds of debris settling around him. His head was bleeding. He wanted to be furious, but he felt too frightened, too stunned.

Where the window had been there was a gaping black hole, bent and deformed around the edges, and his absurdly expensive double layered bulletproof glass was shattered into chunks gleaming ominously in the dim light.

Joshua Swan was motionless on the floor, a piece of glass the length of a person’s arm embedded in his spine.

Dread crawled up Greenmantle’s throat.

The room still seemed to be moving, the walls still seemed to be shifting and crumbling (aftershocks?), and dust swirled between low crimson light and shifting shadows.

Something emerged from the formless lumps of rubble, and Greenmantle barely had a moment to register it before there were fingers bruising his throat.

Lynch’s face was half-coated in blood from some injury, morbidly appropriate war paint, but his eyes remained disturbingly pale. He slammed Greenmantle back into the wall, tilting them both with the spinning world and his own impaired balance.

‘ _What did you use?’_

It took an effort to understand him, to hear him, even. Greenmantle stared, rattled.

‘You _murdered_ my _parents!’_ Lynch shoved his head into the concrete. ‘ _What did you use!?’_

Above them, the building groaned, and an alarm somewhere started to wail. Greenmantle recognised fearfully that the whole structure was collapsing. If he didn’t escape, he’d be buried here, with the dead Swan and the two demonic teenagers.

He croaked; ‘ _Piper_.’

‘What!?’

‘ _PIPER_.’ He was desperate. Something crumbled from the ceiling in a small cascade, raising a dust cloud and the scent of damp. ‘My _wife!’_

Lynch bared glinting sharp teeth just as the room rocked, and he relinquished his grip, tipping sideways.

Greenmantle fled like a man from a sinking ship, tripping over and scrabbling his way into the corridor and disappearing into the dark.

 

 

 

Ronan fell against the wall. His head was a mess, blood on the outside, erratic, disconnected synapses on the inside.

The other superhuman was dead on the floor. He’d looked young, but Ronan hadn’t had a choice in fighting him. Adam was at stake and…

Adam was _here_ , somewhere. In the next room. But he was finding it difficult to tell left from right, and up from down, and moving from not moving.

Greenmantle had run. It was aggravating, but he needed to… find Adam. Christ. The goddamn sparky kid had fried his brain, and he felt like he’d had nine heart attacks since he’d walked in the room.

‘Adam?’ Everything was muffled, blanketed in dull silence. ‘Adam?’

He staggered towards the gaping hole in the wall. The safety lights hadn’t come on inside the other room, or maybe Adam had destroyed them. He sliced his hand open on something jagged climbing into the darkness.

There was an oppressive stillness inside, an unbearable heaviness. It was worse than the threat of the falling ceiling, like an incomprehensible weight pressing downwards, or something beneath the ground exerting excessive gravitational force.

‘Adam-’ Ronan caught his breath. There was less oxygen in here too. If Adam was hurt, he… he couldn’t even comprehend the thought.

He tried stumbling forwards, into the gloom, but it was like moving through sludge, worsening the further he went, until his knees were buckling and he couldn’t get any air into his lungs.

All of the walls had been damaged, metal and concrete, and the ceiling was sporting a dangerous combination of broken overhead lights and cracked slabs of cement. Ronan had glimpsed the machine earlier. There’d been a table and screens and a contraption that would give a sane man nightmares. None of it had survived the blast. The biggest remnants were barely the width of Ronan’s hand.

If he’d arrived too late… if he’d acted too slowly…

The pressure forced him onto his hands and knees. He was being crushed, but Adam… _Adam_.

Adam had been in here. But he’d… done this, so he mustn’t have been hurt… he couldn’t be _gone_.

Ronan sought oxygen helplessly, forcing himself forwards, until he caught sight of the last surviving occupant of the room.

He was barely visible in the gloom, closer to the back wall. On his knees, hunched over himself with his fists and slender wrists pressed to the sides of his head, over his ears and temples and the little trails of blood down either side of his neck.

‘Adam?’ It was hardly a noise. Ronan couldn’t force the name out.

He was difficult to see in the shadows and the dust, but he was alive. Bleeding, but alive.

Ronan fought every aching fibre of his body to stop himself slumping to the floor under the pressure, and dragged himself closer. 

Reaching Adam was impossible. Attempting it was insane. He was suffocating. His body was being mashed into organ failure.

Ronan did it anyway.

He would have done anything. 

Even in the shitty light, Ronan could tell he wasn’t right, wasn’t okay. His eyes were black, all pupils, consumed by darkness. He was staring blindly into space. Whatever he was doing to the atmosphere - whatever he’d done to destroy the stability of the building slowly folding in on itself above them, it wasn’t affecting him.

Ronan tried to talk, tried to say something, but he couldn’t. His lungs burned.

Ironbee would come for him, for Parrish. He’d sworn. Adam would be alright.

Ronan forced both hands up, finding Adam’s arms, and pulled. His vision blurred, and the room spun. His chest was ready to burst. He was dying.

He drew Adam’s arms to his chest, curving over them, pressed his mouth to Adam’s knuckles, his elegant hands.

It was over. His forehead dipped to the tops of Adam’s thighs. His grip slackened. _Adam, Adam_. He was ready to end. Adam would be okay. The others would protect him, where Ronan had failed.

Everything went black, and the pain dissolved.

Ronan imagined he could feel fingers brushing across his skin.


	40. Is innocence subjective, or am I amoral? An autobiography by Ronan Lynch.

The outside of Viridiveste Corp. building was the epitome of serenity when Henry Cheng arrived.

He’d travelled as fast as possible from Foxway, but it was nevertheless eleven minutes since Ronan had snapped and charged in ahead. Until they’d lost comms, Lynch had already, audibly, been fighting his way through the security regiment.

They’d disagreed. Henry had told Lynch that Adam’s phone was back on, so he was out of VVC’s protective sphere. Ronan had curtly replied that Adam hadn’t left the building. He knew, because he’d been on the opposite rooftop since midday, enduring miserable weather with grim determination.

Henry had clarified; Adam’s phone was back on. Ronan had insisted; no Adam.

Gansey had helpfully tried to offer some form of reasonable explanation, and basically the situation had devolved into a three-way debate about who might have faulty tech, or who might have flawed eyesight, or who might be “a deluded, narcissistic tyrant”.

Henry forgave that last comment on the basis that Ronan was clearly experiencing considerable emotional anxiety. Being a compassionate entity, he would have forgiven him because of that alone… But Ronan’s increasing agitation had culminated in a burst of swearing and launching himself of the building.

Henry politely recognised that Ronan wasn’t foolish. He wouldn’t confront a veritable horde of Viridiveste security guards (and probable superhumans) without a good reason. He smoothly assured Gansey everything was probably fine and he’d go in and swoop Ronan and Adam out of trouble.

But he was eleven minutes too late.

Lynch’s tracker and comms went offline as soon as he’d broken through the security border. Parrish was a distant memory in a cage of steel and glass. Henry needed to get inside the building in order to scan for their life signs.

Ironbee was identifiable, but Henry’s reputation was nothing but an adornment… an amusement. He would discard it in an instant for Gansey, and that meant Lynch and Parrish too.

He landed on the pavement, eliciting gasps of awe and excitement from passersby. The internal alarm was wailing through the thick glass in the silver framed entry doors, but people on the sidewalk seemed not to care.

Henry asked gently. The foibles of human nature never failed to meet his expectations.

Henry pushed the door open with one metal finger, and stepped into the crisp, painfully minimalist lobby. There was a heat signature on the floor behind the reception desk, and one figure in a uniform splayed next to an X-ray machine. Several more dotted the broad, marble area beyond the security boundary. Conscious employees milled around them, expressing either utter panic or faint concern, with little variation in between, and none attempted to pass through the metal detectors.

After eyeing the technology dubiously, Henry negotiated his way through the checkpoint and between individuals in the shellshocked crowd.

‘Excuse me. Oh, I beg your pardon. Good afternoon, sir. My apologies, there.’

Ronan had left a trail of destruction, but it appeared to extend in multiple directions, and inside the sphere of VVC’s dampeners, Henry couldn’t locate him. He settled for rapidly shepherding people in the direction of the doors.

‘Evacuation time. Please proceed in an orderly fashion. Why, thank you, you are quite incredible yourself.’

The explosion didn’t actually come as a surprise. Between Lynch and Parrish, it was practically a given… but Henry’s brain did a minor zigzag of possible inferences based on the geographical source, structural damage, potential side effects, aftershocks, predicted casualties.

He thought of Parrish first, undetermined, quiet Adam, and his dedication to Ronan.

Then Lynch. Angry, fragile, and ungovernably devoted to Adam.

The floor trembled, then the foundation pillars, and the glass in most of the windows cracked. The individuals who hadn’t already made it into the street scattered and tumbled with cries of abject terror. Henry hesitated, still waving people towards the exit.

Adam and Ronan were his priority… that was a fact. And Blue would arrive soon, ideally (but not necessarily) with her cousin in pursuit.

He strode to the wall (the suit lent a certain irrepressible authority to his stride) and punched through to the wiring. If he could bring the system down, he had a chance of finding his friends.

He found a stretch of cable and ripped it loose. The lighting went first, the dying whir of air circulation casting them into abrupt silence broken by screams and desperate footfalls. The security system followed, aided by Henry’s liberation of more wiring.

He summoned the functional automatons from Foxway - backup for the evacuation as the floor shuddered again - and tried activating Ronan’s suit remotely.

The signal appeared, jumping weakly from his heads-up to his earpiece. Immense amounts of static. No audio connection. No video. But there was a GPS signal.

The tech said straight down. The tech never lied.

He brought a significant portion of the ceiling down with him as he broke through, and landed in a dim oval of gray light from the overcast sky spilling through the lobby windows. Everything around him was dark, half-collapsed, still shuddering with aftershocks.

There was a faint red glow from a square of wall nearby - emergency lights in the corridor beyond, but it didn’t help much. He raised both hands.

A few feet away, face down on the concrete floor, there was a man with a piece of glass in his spine. Henry didn’t presume to guess whose work it might have been. Ahead of him, there was a torn, uneven circle of darkness, twisted and sharp at the edges. Ronan was beyond that, but there was a silence creeping from the shadows that Henry wanted to flail at.

He thought of train tunnels and holes in the ground. He thought of the way fate liked to torment him.

He kicked through the part of the wall still standing and threw the room into stark light.

The inside was the subject of something catastrophic. Shredded metal lay everywhere. A few bodies, each one raising a hiccup of horror to Henry’s throat before he identified them.

Then his palm-light flickered across Adam, against the back wall. Sitting on the floor. Expressionless.

The suit, its methodical footsteps, were the only things that guided him closer. Lynch was lying in Parrish’s arms. Completely, horribly still. Half of his face was white, the other half was crimson. His eyes were closed, but his lips were parted, just slightly… Henry stopped. He couldn’t go any further.

He was too afraid to engage the bioscan.

‘Please.’ He had to lick his lips to speak. ‘Please, tell me he isn’t-‘

‘Dead.’ Adam said hollowly. He didn’t look away from Ronan’s face. ‘Not yet.’

Something terrifyingly large unknotted itself in the pit of Henry Cheng’s stomach. He exhaled with the realisation that those two words had averted the apocalypse.

Adam refused to look up, cradling Ronan’s head in the crook of one arm and gazing at him. Henry was reminded of one misguided foray into English literature during his early high school years.

 _The ground is bloody_. How terrifyingly morbid.

He couldn’t carry either of them out. They’d be spotted instantly, probably filmed, likely identified.

He called the Hornet and the Colletidae away from active duty. One was trying to assist a scientist on the 12th floor as it crumbled away underneath her, the other was casually perusing the collapsing roof. Henry edged closer, reluctantly inspecting Ronan’s motionless form. He’d acquired several injuries… mostly lacerations and bruises. His organ function was sorely erratic. There were burns too. The thought of it made Henry’s nerves protest.

His heartbeat was soft, but steady. The Colletidae could administer first aid while carrying him back to Foxway… but it was Lynch. If anyone in the world had a chance of surviving a Parrish-made explosion at close range, it was him.

And it was undeniably something that had come from Adam. Every analysis available suggested that Parrish had been the epicentre of the blast. Henry didn’t know how - Henry didn’t need to know _why_ \- but Adam was the source.

Adam wasn’t in peak form himself, although Henry wasn’t certain he had ever experienced a “peak”. He was unreadable and jarring, an alien in a dark place, all bones. There was something inhuman about his features in the cruel light.

Armour dropped through the hole in the ceiling and clunkily joined Henry in the second room. He directed the Colletidae towards Lynch, and uneasily noted Adam’s combative glare, bared teeth, the way he jerked his chin up in defiance at the mere implication of releasing Ronan.

It wasn’t much like Parrish. But whatever had happened here was enough to warrant a little emotional unpredictability.

 

Henry sent them both home. Gansey and Pythia would have to face the fallout by themselves, until the crisis was over.

Viridiveste had fallen… _was_ falling. The structure crumbled and crushed in on itself, every tiny architectural detail, every magnificent scheme and scenario disappearing into rubble. Ironbee, Aegis and Nova rescued as many people as they could, but the sheer number of employees who had already gone home for the day averted a national tragedy of epic proportion.

There was no way of telling yet how far Greenmantle’s evil had spread through the hierarchy of his workforce.

There was no sign of the overlord himself.

There was no real explanation of why Parrish had been in the basement, of what had been happening, of what had caused him to demolish the building and had driven Lynch into a panic.

But Henry brought something else back with him, to Foxway, and at his first opportunity, he pushed it into Adam’s hands with a frown and a brisk nod.

The greater good meant nothing when family was at stake.

 

 

 

Ronan Lynch had been blessed with one of life’s most valuable strengths… immunity to hangovers.

Still, waking up, finally, with a brutally throbbing skull and bone-deep fatigue, felt like compensation for a lifetime of sidestepping that cruelty.

He rolled his neck, curbing nausea and dizziness.

The room was dark, and smelled like candles and crystals. Foxway.

He didn’t need a moment for his eyes to adjust… he’d come from somewhere darker. Things were blurry, but visible. The blanket laden bed he was lying in. The roughly re-plastered ceiling. A sofa on one side with a slumped form on it, glasses askew.

 _Gansey_. Ronan’s relief was a bubble of unshed tears in his throat.

There was an armchair on the other side of the bed, and a baffling figure… all arms and heads…

 _No_. Opal, asleep on Adam’s lap. And Parrish, somehow not asleep, blinking with increasing attentiveness as Ronan stirred.

He tried to speak. Adam, _God_ , the nightmare in the basement of VVC. Greenmantle, that sick son of a bitch. _Adam_.

An incomprehensible wheeze was the only substitute for words, but Adam responded anyway, scooping up Opal and starting forwards.

‘Ronan.’ His voice was a rough whisper. He laid Opal on the edge of the bed, against Ronan’s legs, as she mumbled into wakefulness. ‘ _Gansey_. Gansey, he’s awake.’

Gansey snuffled and sat up, glasses easing off one ear and dangling haphazardly from his face.

Adam’s fingers (cold, always so fucking cold) curled around Ronan’s hand, and he caught them with fervent appreciation. Jesus, he’d thought… He’d almost…

‘Ronan?’ Gansey’s hand clasped his other wrist, voice like melted butter, like cookie dough, like everyone’s favourite comfort food (Ronan was really hungry…?).

Somewhere in the room, flapping and the stir of air signalled Chainsaw’s lack of approval at this noise and commotion.

‘God damn.’ Gansey said it in two words, enunciated perfectly, exasperation tinged with desperation. ‘Thank God.’ He even looked briefly skyward. ‘I thought you were dead, you asshole.’

Ronan grinned at him weakly, and started to sit up. Adam and Gansey helped, a hand each on either shoulder, until he could lean against the headboard and greedily, unattractively, drag in huge mouthfuls of air.

Gansey’s wilfully symmetrical, handsome face, affectionately worried eyes, amusingly predictable parental frown. Adam’s strange, fatal attractiveness, enigmatic expression, slender and strong fingers on Ronan’s skin, thumb dusting his knuckles. His face was slightly different - bruised, possibly, but Ronan’s drowsy vision couldn’t confirm this.

Opal muttered something which was distractingly abusive and flung herself onto his chest. Her little fists curled against his back, and he realised he was wearing fresh clothes… his own, thank God.

Adam let go of his hand, withdrawing into shadows, and Ronan reluctantly accepted the gesture in order to hug Opal gently and offer an entirely unconvincing apology for her pain.

‘How long was I out?’ He asked croakily over her head, and Gansey made a noise of frustration.

Adam murmured something about “telling the others” and retreated, and Ronan watched him leave with extreme displeasure.

‘It’s Saturday morning.’ Gansey answered balefully.

Ronan didn’t respond. He wasn’t surprised… in fact, he hadn’t really expected to wake up, making a couple extra hours of sleep hardly problematic, but he wasn’t about to admit that to _Gansey_.

There was a pause. Gansey seemed on the verge of speaking, but he didn’t. He just seemed relieved. So relieved that Ronan felt uncomfortably grateful.

‘So…’ Gansey began finally, and the feeling of gratitude evaporated in that one, awkward syllable. ‘You and Adam are…’ He gestured excessively vaguely.

Ronan grimaced.

He wondered if it had been hysterically throwing himself off a building that had finally given it away. Or Adam’s hand curling around his own. Or if Adam had _said_ something? Or if one of the _others_ had said something?

Gansey frowned, distressed.

‘Why don’t you tell me anything?’ He protested miserably. ‘What did I ever do to you?’

Ronan winced. ‘C’mon, man.’

It had occurred to him. That he ought to have told Gansey. That Gansey would understand.

But it had always felt too tenuous. Adam was constantly slipping out of Ronan’s reach, and Gansey was sometimes a little too distant for comfort. And he had revenge to attend to.

There was a touch of hypocrisy there as well, that Ronan had no trouble discarding now. Weeks upon weeks of curling his lip at Gansey’s references to Adam had established a certain unreality, cemented by hiding his association with Parrish as the Widower. But hypocrisy, clearly, had no role in Gansey’s disappointment.

‘I’m serious.’ He crossed his arms defensively. ‘I tell you everything.’

Ronan snorted, and regretted it.

‘I just assumed the jealousy would overwhelm you.’ He sighed.

‘Who am I meant to be jealous of, exactly?’ Gansey pushed his glasses up haughtily. ‘You or Adam?’

‘Either.’ Ronan shrugged, amused. ‘Both.’

Gansey slapped his leg through the blanket, fighting laughter. ‘You’re unbelievable.’

Ronan sniggered until his brain found a higher gear. ‘How’s he been?’

Gansey’s smile faded. ‘Since the explosion?’

‘No, since the 6pm news.’

The sarcasm didn’t make it easier. Gansey stared at Ronan’s arm, above where he was still holding it. ‘I don’t know, Ronan. He’s barely said two sentences. I haven’t seen him sleep.’

‘Did he go to work?’ It was Saturday. Parrish would be working in the afternoon. He should have had work yesterday evening too.

Gansey scowled. ‘No. God. No.’

So something was wrong. Ronan didn’t say it. It was pitiful making that evaluation based on Adam’s commitment to work, of all things, but it was by far the most accurate indication of his stability.

If Adam hadn’t said anything, did Gansey know about the machine? About Greenmantle?

Gansey might know what the machine had been designed to do… and Ronan needed to know. It gnawed at his insides (along with the aching hunger) that Adam had endured it, that he’d suffered. But it must have had a purpose - to obtain information? What had they been attempting to do to him? What had they managed to do?

He couldn’t ask Gansey, though. If Adam hadn’t described what had happened, he must have had a reason.

‘You got any food, mutant?’

Opal withdrew her head calmly from his shoulder and shot him a conservative look.

Ronan tried for a stern gaze, and ended up with mildly quizzical, but she still climbed off the bed and retrieved a bundle of snacks. He appreciatively ripped open a muesli bar.

The door thumped open before Gansey could continue the conversation, and someone took one massive step and landed on the foot of Ronan’s bed.

‘Bro!’

Matthew. Ronan smirked automatically, and his brother crawled up the length of the bed and engulfed him in an uncomfortably tight hug.

‘You looked like a goner, for sure.’ Matthew admitted. ‘Declan went through the roof.’

Behind Matthew, lingering disdainfully by the doorframe, Declan rolled his eyes. ‘That’s not accurate in any way.’

Matthew sat on the end of the bed, and Opal sat on Ronan’s legs, and Gansey occupied his sofa with a mostly appeased air. Declan loitered at a safe distance, Henry visited, and even Blue wandered in to comment on the state of Ronan’s personality.

Adam didn’t come back.

 

 

 

It took several disjointed conversations to establish that Adam genuinely hadn’t explained the events at Viridiveste. The story started and ended with Henry finding them both in the ruined basement and sending them home, although Ronan wasn’t far from believing that Cheng always knew more than he said. He smoothly avoided describing the state he’d found them in, and he didn’t refer to Adam as anything but a bystander.

The building had collapsed, entirely. One massive mess, that had restored Ironbee and Aegis to a state of fame and nationwide respect due to their prompt response and evacuation of victims.

Gansey had expertly managed the publicity. An initial theory that some kind of generator explosion was to blame had gradually been replaced as documents from the badly compromised (in fact, obliterated) Viridiveste systems had been leaked, revealing numerous experimental failures and extraordinary breaches of ethics.

Greenmantle’s headquarters had been destroyed, and Gansey was taking care to annihilate what was left of his reputation.

Ronan let his version evade the salient details. He’d tried to track down Parrish, blah blah, heroic rescue, etc. Encountered Greenmantle (much to Declan’s horror) and fought the superhuman (much to Matthew’s awe) but Greenmantle had slipped away in the explosion (probably caused by the walking taser).

He almost held back the information about Greenmantle’s wife, but Declan was already halfway into a nervous breakdown and it seemed like only a little nudge was necessary to send him over the edge.

‘Bastard said his wife did it.’ Ronan said viciously, leaving the “it” unspoken. Matthew blinked vacantly, Opal nibbled indifferently at a stick of celery (whoever was responsible for _that_ was going to be in trouble), and Declan’s expression darkened.

‘His wife?’ He tested the words distastefully, but Ronan felt a small surge of triumph. He recognised that expression. He’d _worn_ that expression.

He wanted to tell Adam that he finally knew.

He needed to tell Adam that Greenmantle was a dead man.

 

 

 

It wasn’t until the evening that Parrish returned.

Ronan had showered and cleaned himself up. He wasn’t healing properly, and someone had made an attempt to treat him, distributing more patches of antibacterial goop across Ronan’s body than seemed remotely necessary under the circumstances. He pushed open the bathroom door into a mostly empty bedroom.

The blinds had been opened at some point earlier, and it was raining again, violent, muffled drops and wavering, rippling streetlights and windows lit up in the opposite building. The bedside lamp was on, casting half of Adam’s face in orange light and the other in abrupt shadow where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. The bruises were more obvious now, sharpening the contours of his face, deepening the etchings of fatigue.

Ronan still didn’t know if he was occupying someone’s actual bedroom. He preferred not to know. It made it easier to step closer to Adam, lay a hand onto each of his shoulders and follow the curve of his neck up to his jaw.

Adam lifted his chin, silent but expectant, and Ronan kissed him slowly, intent on conveying exactly how much it destroyed him to be separated from Adam for more than a few seconds.

Fingers caught the hem of his shirt. He’d ended up in slacks (did he even own slacks? they must have been his, because they weren’t Gansey-short) and it was apparently easy for Adam’s palms to slide against his skin, under his hips and low enough to leave Ronan lightheaded.

Lack of oxygen might have contributed. Adam pulled back for a breath, forehead against Ronan’s jaw.

It wasn’t the time. It was never the time, but Ronan had to say something, to promise the only certainty he had.

‘I’m going to kill him.’ He said lowly.

Adam barely reacted. Ronan heard his lips move, a soft, uneven intake of breath.

_I’m going to kill him for hurting you. I’m going to make his world nothing but pain._

‘I didn’t find it.’ Adam answered, voice faint and eyes lowered.

Ronan tipped Adam’s head back gently.

‘Piper.’ He said grimly. Adam frowned. His eyelashes fluttered unsteadily under Ronan’s gaze. ‘Piper Greenmantle is the Demon.’

There was silence for the moment it took Adam to search his expression. ‘Piper Greenmantle?’

Ronan nodded once.

Adam seemed to settle, minutely. Tracking his emotions through the subtle changes across his features was an art form it would take years to master. Ronan would beg for those years.

What had the machine done, except hurt him?

Had it affected him permanently? Was he anything other than Adam?

He kissed Ronan back, painstakingly delicate. A slow deconstruction of every rational part of Ronan Lynch.

Ronan sank lower, to his knees, pulling Adam forwards. There was heat pooling in his stomach. He felt heavy-limbed and possessed.

‘Adam…’ He dropped his chin to one of Adam’s knees, breathless, senselessly elated.

Would it matter, if Adam had changed? If any part of Adam remained, Ronan wouldn’t be able to stop loving him. It wasn’t possible.

And this was Adam. He was certain of it.

‘Things are different.’ It was a quiet confession, delivered mostly to Ronan’s temple in a ragged murmur.

‘Different how?’

Adam paused, staring over Ronan’s shoulder. ‘Opal was eating M&Ms in here yesterday. There’s one down the back of the armchair cushion. It’s orange.’

‘Gansey and Blue are talking to Maura in the living room. Henry’s in the garage… Opal’s watching him repair the Apidae. Calla is…’ He frowned gently. ‘Hanging from the ceiling, I think. Orla’s going out. Persephone is downstairs tonight… she’s answering the phone.’

Ronan shifted backwards, staring.

Adam closed his eyes. Bruised skin hid his freckles, his fine eyebrows. ‘There’s an art gallery next door. Private exhibition. Sixteen people plus the artist, but he’s… drunk. He’s throwing up in the bathroom. There’s a man across the road who is feeding his cat. The people next door are watching Vikings. And the children in 6e aren’t-’

Ronan interrupted him, thumbs curved over the sharp edges of his jaw, urgent kisses on his mouth and cheekbones and forehead, until Adam was smiling, trying not to, trying to regain his composure. _Crazy, inexplicable Parrish._ Where did this power come from? Telepathy? Was it a divine gift?

‘I have something… for you.’ Adam pulled away, turning serious, and navigated over to his backpack by the door.

It was a leather-bound file, thick as a slab, scented with smoke and dust. Ronan scowled at it automatically. It looked like work and it smelled like tragedy.

Adam pushed it into his hands, settling onto the end of the bed. He didn’t watch Ronan open it, or flick through the pages with increasing anguish.

‘What the fuck, Parrish.’ Fury forced him upright.

Adam didn’t look round. He said flatly; ‘It’s a contingency plan.’

Ronan threw the file against the wall angrily. ‘It’s bullshit. Why do you even have this? Why would you keep that?’

He tried to reject what he’d glimpsed, what he’d made the mistake of reading before he’d understood what it _was_. He realised exactly what Greenmantle had been doing with it, and it made sick fear flood his system.

Adam calmly retrieved it and brought it back. His explanation was brief, clinical, crushing. ‘It can stop me. If I do something, use it to stop me.’

Ronan’s world was fire. He ignored the stabbing pain behind his eyes in order to glare. ‘You just said-’

‘I don’t know what I am.’ Adam cut him off sharply. ‘I don’t know what that thing did to me.’

_You’re Adam. My Adam._

‘ _This_ didn’t stop you.’ Ronan hissed vengefully. ‘It’ll only make it worse.’

This was what had caused the explosion. This was what had imploded Adam’s self-control.

Adam shook his head, vehement. ‘No. I thought I was losing- I thought- Just. Just _take_ it.’

‘No fucking chance.’ He crossed his arms. He couldn’t touch a weapon for harming Parrish. It was unreasonable. Insane.

Adam sighed; ‘It’s you or Henry. Someone has to know-’

Ronan snatched the thing so fast Adam trailed off, staring at him. ‘Fine. Fine, fine, fine.’ _Breathe, you idiot. Breathe._

He took a few steps back, furious and unsettled.

When Adam finally released a low breath and looked down, Ronan flung himself through the bathroom door, tossed the file open on the porcelain base of the shower and spun both taps.

‘No, Ronan, no, no-’ Adam skidded into the room, and Ronan caught him, one arm loose around his waist and the other around his chest, pulling him close, holding him away from the taps he was lunging for. ‘No, jesus, no, what are you doing? What are you-’

He didn’t fight, thankfully. He might not have been able to get out of Ronan’s grip, but Ronan wasn’t prepared to bruise him in order to hold him back.

It only took seconds for the water to seep through layers of paper, and ink to start ebbing across the white surface towards the drain.

Adam stopped protesting, but Ronan could still feel him shaking, hands skittering uncertainly against Ronan’s arms and the wall and each other.

He was upset. Ronan understood. Parrish hated having his plans undermined, hated failure. But it was a weapon, and Ronan couldn’t allow it.

The file was slowly turning to a soggy mass. Adam was shivering.

_I’m sorry it hurts. I had to do it._

‘You-’ Adam’s voice broke. ‘- you stopped _breathing_. You stopped breathing… People died, and you were dying… and I… did that.’ He wasn’t crying, but he was close to it.

Ronan tightened his grasp, enough to pull Adam against his chest and bury his face in tousled hair.

If Ronan had to choose between protecting Parrish and protecting himself from Parrish, there was only ever going to be one option.

‘Did you decide to kill me?’ Ronan demanded.

‘ _No_.’

‘Then why’re you acting like it?’

‘I dropped a building on you.’ Adam’s tone edged towards frustration, a semblance of his normal self.

‘Oh, is that what that was?’ Ronan scoffed. ‘You’re gonna need a bigger building.’

Adam relinquished a reluctant huff of amusement, and Ronan felt him slump.

‘What do I do-’ He asked faintly. ‘-if I lose control again?’

Ronan took a moment to consider the question, kissing the back of Adam’s jaw. ‘You should think very hard about how pretty I am and try not to kill me.’

Adam’s shoulders trembled - laughter? - and he elbowed Ronan in the stomach.

‘Ass.’

 

 

 

The bed was too small for Ronan’s comfort, but it was still wider than Adam’s.

He had to resort to holding Adam still, because uneasy reluctance made Parrish fidgety and restless and Ronan risked smacking his head on the nightstand every time Adam turned over.

It was difficult to tell if Adam had been keeping himself awake, or if he’d been physically unable to sleep, but once Ronan had pinned him down enough and repeatedly offered sarcastic remarks about being telekinetically fought/seduced in the middle of the night (much to Adam’s apparent disdain), he finally slept.

Ronan listened to him breathing softly into the elbow curved over his face, the darkness catching and spinning dizzily around him and the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the slow, comforting beat of his heart.

In the rain-dappled light from the window and the quiet solitude of the room, Ronan thought that, without concern for the future, he could have Adam’s presence and his heartbeat and the sublime knowledge that he _was,_ without needing anything else to sustain him. He could survive just like this, just with Adam.

And it was what he wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This isn't the last chapter in sorry for being misleading) Many, many thanks to the lovely people who read and commented on previous chapters. I desperately wanted to mention that I have some headcanons for this story that I thought some of you might enjoy.  
> 1) I regularly imagine the Gangsey getting dragged into hijinks with various characters from both Marvel and DC universes because what the hell, it would be awesome.  
> 2) Ronan meeting Peter Parker and both of them trying to figure out what the heck happened (Is Ronan a multiverse Peter? Is Ronan actually Peter's alter ego? Is Peter secretly a weirdly non-Irish Lynch baby?)  
> 3) Ronan being apparently completely unimpressed but actually fanboying hard about meeting Black Widow (because she's not even *superhuman*)  
> 4) Adam Parrish and Bruce Banner, 'nuff said.  
> 5) Ironbee and Tony Stark, competitive suit construction getting progressively more out of hand  
> 6) Aegis being 100% done with everything and Steve Rogers being slightly (politely) jealous of her shield.  
> 7) Catwoman's *charms* having zero effect on Ronan but almost definitely distracting Adam.  
> 8) Adam Parrish and Barry Allen, 'nuff said.  
> 9) WONDER WOMAN and BLUE. Just. Please.  
> 10) Everyone in the Avengers being slightly alarmed by the fact that both Parrish and Lynch are lethal, fairly mean to each other, barely eighteen, and they have a child. I just. Need it.  
> Thank you to @Leeikia for bringing this back into my forgetful brain.  
> Enjoy.


	41. The insurance premiums in this city must be *beyond* crazy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a bit delayed. Had an unusually busy week. Combined with my naturally lazy personality, little was achieved.   
> Thanks to everyone who commented (and hasn't received a reply). Thought I'd post this ASAP and provide more cogent responses (if they ever are) in the morning. All my love.

The room was still warm, faintly lit, and pervaded by the gently musical sound of raindrops striking the window (and the fire escape outside). Opal was sleeping on the couch in a pile of cushions and blankets. Adam wasn’t sure if Ronan had fetched her or if she’d found her way in, but he was pleased to have her in sight.

Ronan was still asleep, one arm thrown across Adam’s stomach and his head tucked somewhere behind Adam’s shoulder. Everything about him was softened and tranquil, and his breath warmed the back of Adam’s shirt.

The pressure had receded slightly from his skull. Sleep, no matter how little, had helped him feel more settled, more stable. Ronan had destroyed the binder (a reflexive flash of panic) but nothing had happened. He stared at the ceiling for a bit, running his tongue over his teeth and detecting the metallic taste of blood.

He wasn’t sure if it was real or not.

On Thursday night, between Ronan’s unconsciousness and the constant noise, he hadn’t tried to sleep. His head had ached, pinballing him between nausea and staticky, frantic desperation. In the bathroom he’d caught sight of himself in the mirror, but a different him, an earlier Adam, the thin disproportionate limbs and softer features of pre-adolescence, blood on his face and hands.

He recognised the memory, but it hadn’t felt like a memory. It felt like a moving interposition of the past, a breach in the laws of time and space that had returned him to a younger self.

Other, subsequent events had momentarily convinced him he was falling in and out of time. The smell of the damp earth and fresh berries from previous mornings spent harvesting, unexpectedly assailing him halfway down a random Foxway corridor. The abrupt arrival of what sounded like a perfect replica of a Sandplains downpour (sleet on tin rooftops, sludgey sliding earth, flickering electricity) in the midst of a muted foggy Friday morning. Peripheral images of past Adams, his father, mother, primary school teachers peering at him over crossed arms, all disappearing whenever Adam twisted for a closer look.

Other possibilities (as opposed to time travel) had occurred. A traumatic brain injury, perhaps, or a side effect of insomnia. Maybe it was something to do with whatever Greenmantle’s technology had done, been designed to do. Maybe it was something to do with the blinding pain that had reduced his awareness to a sphere of silent, choking darkness, before he’d woken minutes, maybe hours later with Ronan dying in his arms.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried to fight back, in a controlled way, but the pressure had made it impossible to concentrate, to think. He’d expected the machine to crush his bones, even if it didn’t manage to get through the wall around his mind.

The only thing that had that dubious honour was Ronan. Adam had heard him cry out, had immediately imagined the trap laid for him, between Josh, Geminae, and whatever other monsters Greenmantle could produce (the Demon?) and every instinct had demanded a reaction. A violent, unpredictably powerful reaction.

People had died… like Whelk, but unknown, unidentified figures, in the room, maybe in the collapse of the building overhead. And Josh, young, impressionable (and evil) Josh.

But Ronan hadn’t.

He’d arrived quickly, Adam thought, though he wasn’t certain about the accuracy of his perception of time. Always, Ronan, complex, intense Ronan, always finding a way to reach him.

And Ronan had a name. _Piper Greenmantle_. But Adam had been a fool to go back, to act like he was in control, to risk losing Ronan by forcing him to follow.

Ronan mumbled something incomprehensible into Adam’s shoulder, but didn’t wake.

Adam knew, distantly, that most of the other residents of Foxway were asleep. Henry wasn’t… neither was Persephone, still downstairs, diligently watching the shopfront and the phones. He sat up, slowly, trying not to disturb Ronan.

It was a strange feeling, this difference. A wakefulness that persisted in spite of confusion and the gradually diminishing throb of his head. He finally remembered when Noah had arrived. It was before he’d started at Aglionby, before he’d even applied. Several nights in a row, of fatigue and hazy uncertainty, before Noah had just been there, and Adam had gained a brother (and misplaced a father).

The past Noah had created, implanted, existed alongside a clear, brotherless memory. Adam’s mind, memory, character was bisected into two distinct tracks. Present-Adam was both, and something more broad. Something strange and vast and difficult to comprehend, even with his curious, baffling clarity about the things happening outside of him.

He slipped from the bed, no easy feat when confronted with Ronan’s tangled nearness, and hesitantly crept out of the room.

 

 

 

Persephone smiled at him dreamily when he reached the end of the corridor downstairs.

‘You look better.’ She said approvingly.

‘Thank you.’ He edged closer, the coldness of the floorboards creeping through his socks. ‘I feel better. Mostly.’

A hint of irony tugged at one corner of her mouth. ‘How you feel is not so different from how you think you feel, in the long run.’

He cleared his throat and nodded. Was it paranoia? But then, how could he be certain what damage had been done, when he wasn’t sure what he was in the first place?

‘You’re still concerned.’ She observed gently.

_Of course._

‘Who do you trust the most?’ She prompted. ‘Who do you feel would be best able to judge your stability?’

Adam considered. ‘Ronan?’ She smiled, slightly wider, but inclined her head. He frowned. ‘Myself.’

‘And what do you think?’

That he couldn’t be trusted.

That he felt that he would recover, but how could he know?

That surely there was more at stake, too much at stake, to just trust himself? That he could barely keep… _whatever_ this was under control without Ronan, and Thursday had been evidence that a threat to Ronan was enough to compromise even that assurance.

‘Do you know what I am?’ Adam asked quietly. ‘Can you tell?’

‘Why do you think you aren’t what you always thought you were?’

Adam had reached the desk, he tapped it vacantly while leaning sideways. The room, like the rest of the house, was dimly lit by lamp and candle. The glass windows were squares of starry, blurry blackness, and interrupted by the large printed words that Adam read backwards out of habit, even though he remembered what they said.

‘I didn’t have all the facts.’ He replied carefully. ‘I didn’t know what could- what I could do.’

She hummed in polite agreement, or disagreement, Adam wasn’t sure.

‘You speak.’ She said. ‘You read, and write, and study, and work. What can be done by anyone is often not entirely natural. It requires effort, and patience.’

Adam had patience. He was as familiar with effort as with breathing.

He added with difficulty; ’It’s dangerous.’ It wasn’t something he could practice. There were no rules for ensuring that what he might practice would be _correct_.

‘Power always is.’ She reminded him. ‘And it makes perseverance all the more vital.’

For a second, Adam thought the phone rang - or he knew that the phone rang, somewhere. At some point. He stared at the silent receiver suspiciously. Control could be practiced. Learned. Was it feasible with the suddenness and strength of what his mind was apparently capable of? Was it too unsafe? He could stay at Foxway, under Henry and Blue’s watch, stay underground in Henry’s garage. He could try to _learn_ … but…

‘Do you know if I’m-’ Adam knew what he’d intended to say, but his tongue faltered, betrayed him. _Broken? Damaged? Compromised?_

What had been done? _What had been done?_

She tipped her head again, birdlike, almost predatory. Adam was abruptly unnerved by the darkness of her eyes, the foreignness of something behind them. Where had Persephone come from? Some genetic anomaly? Some family mutation, passed down through generations? Or was she something entirely different, as she seemed in the half-light of a quiet moment?

What was he? The child of his parents. He knew that with painful certainty. And something definitely, unequivocally unlike them, at the same time.

‘I very much doubt you are anything you do not wish to be.’ Persephone said playfully, the evaluative intensity sliding from her expression. Adam leaned more on the counter, and thought about returning to Ronan, to contagious warmth, to Ronan’s legs folded up in order to fit on the bed, his knees nudging out space under Adam’s, his cheek insistently smushed between shoulder blade and tie-dyed sheet.

Persephone’s smile shimmered and slipped. She looked across the room, and murmured; ‘Oh dear.’

Adam straightened, turning, and saw nothing. He glanced back at Persephone, rising from her chair, her pale face anxiously attentive, witnessing the way she momentarily recoiled before the front door splintered off its frame and swung inwards.

The space was an empty, dark rectangle, sparkling with slanted raindrops and wavering, still-lit shop windows, floating apartment lights, distant and obtusely faint streetlamps.

Adam’s gaze swung frantically between doorway and Persephone, but he saw nothing.

The vertigo hit him first, a dizzying, deconstructing nausea that made him clutch the desk with a humiliating stagger. Persephone’s hands were white marble around her edge of the desk too, but she didn’t shrink away like he did.

He felt the entity in the shop as clearly as a person, now. It radiated sickness. Corruption. It was made of it, sustained and sustaining, a self-sufficient generator of contamination.

He couldn’t see it, because he could barely see anything. The world spun and tilted, but the taste in his mouth was worse… not blood, anymore, a misplaced recollection, but something like acid, like bile. His head was an agony of noise.

Persephone, a white statue, was marred by lines of black. Even in a spinning universe Adam felt raw fear stab into his chest as he recognised the tracks of infected blood.

The noise was a violent cacophony, the gasping flow of blood in his veins and arteries was collapsing them, warping them into his flesh.

 

 

 

He lurched upright violently, flailing for stability, for anything identifiable in the darkness. He could breathe again, and the whole world was the sound of his wheezing gasps for air.

Something grabbed his shoulder, and he emitted a low whine.

’Adam. _Adam_.’ Another hand grasped his cheek, turned his jaw. The dark started to morph into distinguishable shapes. A square of window. The armchair. _Ronan_. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

Adam caught his wrists, tried to focus on his sharp-edged face. He struggled to speak. ‘Something- downstairs- down- Persephone-’

Ronan’s grip tightened briefly, gaze appraising, and then released him. He kicked free of the bedsheets. ‘Stay with Adam.’

Two strides took him to the door, and then he was gone, slamming it shut behind himself.

Opal clambered onto the edge of the mattress, small arms enclosing one of Adam’s shaking elbows, and her eyes on the closed door. She clasped his hand in her two warm ones, and squeezed sympathetically.

It was difficult to concentrate, to escape the clawing terror of being killed, being poisoned, but he could just barely track Ronan’s rapid movement through the building, downstairs, more stairs, more stairs, towards Persephone - and god, he could tell something was wrong, if he hadn’t already known it wasn’t a dream.

Ronan wasn’t the only one. Blue was awake too, and moving fast. Henry was already halfway into his armour. Calla was stirring somewhere.

But that thing, that thing downstairs was going to kill Persephone, attack the others.

Declan had said once that Ronan wouldn’t heal from the power of the Demon.

And he was running straight at it.

Adam crawled off the side of the bed, trying to catch his breath and clear his mind. ‘I’ve got to… help Ronan.’ He explained weakly. Opal’s huge bright eyes watched him knowingly, and she nodded. ‘Stay here. If you’re… scared, hide somewhere safe, and we’ll… I promise we’ll find you.’

He stumbled to the door and forced himself into the hall beyond it.

The hall was dark. He was beginning to loathe the dark. Another uncontrollable fear to add to the list.

He couldn’t hear anything, but as his mind cleared he obtained a better sense of where people were. Calla was definitely in motion, but it was difficult to figure out what exactly she was doing. Henry was coming back through the passage from the garage. Blue was at the bottom of the stairs. Ronan was… _no_.

Adam sprinted for the stairway.

He could feel it - the Demon - a spreading bubble of disease, engulfing the lower floor of the building.

His feet slipped on the stairs, he collided with the wall a couple of times. It was so damned dark.

He wondered if it was invisible, unseen. If that was why Piper Greenmantle had never appeared in Gansey’s research.

Gansey was still in the building (confined to the living room, presumably). Maura too. No Orla, but Matthew and Declan were still here, inhabiting some spare room on a higher floor.

The Demon would kill them all, given a chance. _Ronan_.

Adam skidded off the last landing, felt a suffocating pressure grasp at his throat, and crashed down the last stretch of staircase.

He nearly tripped over Ironbee, on his knees, at the close end of the corridor, caught in the throes of the same horrific sensation.

‘Henry.’ He choked out the name, clutching at the mask. ‘Hen-’

One metal arm lifted up and jerkily gestured, a pleading silence directed him onwards.

Adam looked up, but his legs were crumpling beneath him. His vision swam.

Somewhere up ahead, Persephone was lying on the floor. Vanishing. Blue was near her, holding her head, an unrecognisable moment of vulnerability. And Ronan, Ronan was closest to the centre, closest to being consumed by it.

It was an involuntary, a reflexive response. Desperate and impulsive, more of a flinch than an active strike, but Adam caught it. Forced it back, contained it somehow into a writhing sphere and tried to compress it, crush it.

It only shrank so far, like squeezing elastic into a tiny manageable ball. Adam could feel it fighting back, scratching at the periphery with vicious, frenzied talons, or teeth, or daggers.

But it couldn’t reach Ronan.

Ironbee, even in full armour, slumped against the wall. An unsteady metal hand scraped the helmet, and after a couple of failed attempts, Henry opened the mask.

‘Run.’ He coughed thickly. ‘Go… before… ugh-’

The door at the end of the corridor crashed open. Adam hardly had time to swipe his hands across his watering eyes before he heard the first gunshot. Ironbee lunged sideways, gracelessly, throwing Adam to the floor. Bullets pinged off the back of his armour.

After at least six shots, there was a lull. And then a clear, feminine voice, disturbingly disparate from the monster it came from; ‘You must be the little asshole who destroyed Colin’s building.’ She sighed. ‘Not that it matters to _me_ , but _he_ was so proud of it. His precious empire, you know.’

Henry reached for the wall, straining to straighten up. ‘ _Go_.’

Adam went for the stairs, a wobbly lurch.

‘I never wanted to be in this shithole city.’ Piper Greenmantle announced coolly. ‘I’m delirious with joy to be moving. But once again, I have to mop up another absurd superhuman mess.’

He scrabbled up the steps, clawed his way onto the landing, and scrambled for the second floor. His head was throbbing, worsening exponentially the longer she talked, the more she fought against his grip on her power.

‘You _are_ a pain in the ass. Let me assure you, those cute little mind tricks might work on mere mortals like my husband, but they will not deter me.’

She reached him halfway up the second staircase. He couldn’t tell how she’d managed to catch up so quickly. He couldn’t focus on anything other than penning her in. Something caught his ankle and yanked, and he fell face first onto the stairs with a yelp.

Jagged pain shot through his skull, but he kicked back on instinct and flung himself out of reach.

He kept his hold, but there was blood dripping down his forehead, into his eyes. He couldn’t just keep climbing the building, and he wasn’t certain now where anyone else was. He tripped down the third floor corridor instead.

If he could get onto the fire escape, he might be able to get back to the ground, lead her away from Foxway.

He’d barely made it six feet before fingers snatched at the shoulders of his shirt, swung him to one side and then slammed him against the other wall. He collapsed with another muffled whimper, twisting enough to finally see her, the Demon.

She was human, despite being devoid of a human presence. Attractive. Petite, even. Narrow shoulders and slender arms were misleading. She’d abandoned the gun, but a fist struck Adam’s cheekbone with ruthless precision and jarring strength.

She’d drawn back her fist for another blow, but it stalled in midair.

Someone groaned (Adam briefly thought it might have been him) and then the Demon was dragged back, cursing liberally as she went. Gansey was clutching one arm with an expression of mixed horror and indignation on his face, and Declan was holding the other, between the two of them somehow hauling her away.

Adam’s face was definitely bleeding. Swelling, too. But when he dusted his fingertips across his skin and pulled them back for a look, he was grateful to see the red tint to the blood.

Gansey gasped his name, concern overriding physical exertion, and Adam tried to sit up.

‘You-’ Declan grunted. ‘Demented… sadistic… _bitch_ … of a monster.’

He and Gansey managed to drag her back and crash her against the wall, and Declan freed one hand long enough to produce a knife and stab her with it.

Adam, tentatively easing onto his palms and forcing his gaze to focus, observed the apparent ineffectiveness of this attack.

Piper rolled her eyes, visibly seething at congruent mental and physical confinement. ‘Yes, yes. All very dramatic, but slightly underwhelming.’

Declan pulled out the knife, and the slightly gauzy pale fabric over the Demon’s torso fluttered unblemished in its wake. He swore, a harsh, familiar sound, and she giggled. ‘Alright, that’s enough fun for you.’

She wrenched both arms loose, flinging Gansey into one wall and Declan into the other.

Her eyes gleamed black, all colour erased, and veins under semi-translucent skin carved checkerboard patterns across her face.

Adam attempted to slide backwards swiftly, but a shoe (impressively heeled) snapped down on one of his legs. She gloated for almost a half-second before something took out her knee and she staggered off him.

Opal materialised by his side, alight with righteous fury, her hands clenched around an axe which nearly rivalled her in height.

Just as abruptly, the Demon was launched back into the wall in a flash of blue light, and Opal disappeared.

The world was shrinking to an awareness of the Demon’s (considerable) mental force. Adam’s control was unreliable, his autonomy was practically irrelevant. He had the ability to restrain her, maybe even destroy her, but he didn’t know how to use it, manipulate it. If she got close enough to kill him, his instincts might do the work, but there was no certainty she would be the only one damaged by his attempt.

With Blue (gradually ascending the stairs and navigating down the hallway, black smears on her face and fingers - Gansey reached for her with unrestrained consternation) trapping her in place, the Demon threw more energy into the mental fight. Adam’s hold couldn’t break… but everything _hurt_.

‘Kill her.’ Declan demanded roughly.

‘How?’ Gansey protested. ‘ _How?’_

Declan glanced at Adam, rethought it, and looked at Blue instead.

‘She’s not… human.’ Adam gasped. ‘I don’t-’ _Pain. Stabbing pain_. ‘-think… it’ll work.’

Someone appeared further down the hall, several someones, blurry in the distance. Blue shouted something about Persephone, and they clattered downstairs.

 _Stab. Slash. Stab_. He couldn’t see anymore. _Ronan_. Was Ronan alright?

Henry’s voice, through a fog. ‘Never. Sleeping. Again. Wow. Oh, wow.’ The mechanical thud of armour. ‘Parrish? Adam?’

Hands, one metal and one skin, shifting him into a sitting position. The haze dissipated slightly, the figures arranged in defensive posture around the captive Demon, struggling and hissing and breaking holes in the wall behind her. Henry was crouched next to him, half-in, half-out of his armour. ‘Keep a hold on her, Parrish.’

It was too much. Adam was slipping, slipping. If he passed out, she’d kill everyone. They wouldn’t have a chance to-

He heard Ronan yell; _‘Move!’_ and the others scattered, clearing a path. There was the glint of metal, a line of it, from Ronan’s shoulder to his fingertips, pieces of Henry’s armour, and beyond them, the solid metal handle and silver edged blade of the axe, poised for the blow.

Ronan swung.


	42. Where did your heart come from?

The axe blade sank home - an awful noise of splintering bone followed by splintering wood.

Ronan’s arms trembled, but he held on a few moments longer, paralysed with distrust, disbelief. The corridor had gone silent, as the Demon twitched and convulsed for a few long, disturbing seconds, and Ronan could only hear the sound of his own ragged breathing.

The head drooped, shiny, platinum hair falling silkily across shoulders. Eyelids coming down over sickening, black orb eyes.

Gansey’s face was colourless horror. Ronan wished it was just horror at the Demon, but he knew Gansey wouldn’t be able to see him kill and forgive him for it.

His arms slackened, and fell. The axe, Opal’s deliberate, determined gift, had gone right through her breastbone, and was stuck in the wall.

Every inch of Ronan’s body felt like it had been pummelled with a sledgehammer. His brain wasn’t functioning. Ronan hated her. Hated it. Whatever it was. Anger left his lungs aching and the stripes of blood on Sargent and Cheng made him dizzy with dread.

Someone said; ‘Lynch.’ Ronan ignored them.

_‘Lynch!’_

Henry was clutching Adam. Holding him upright, actually, despite Parrish being in the middle of another episode of creepy dissociation. Ronan stared, recognising the state, hazily grasping for the implication. He begrudgingly acknowledged automatic appreciation for Henry’s anxious concern. He wondered if Adam was on the verge of destroying the building. He realised it didn’t make him regret wrecking that file full of bullshit.

Adam shuddered once, half-lidded eyes gazing unseeingly across the floor, and Ronan woke up.

He was already reaching for the axe handle, still watching Parrish, when Declan swore.

The platinum head had lifted. Carefully whitened teeth smeared with black sludge gleamed in a predatory snarl, and perfectly manicured claws curled around the axe at the same time as Ronan’s poison-smudged fingers.

It wasn’t possible that she was still alive. Her chest had been smashed in. Her spine must have been severed.

It pushed as he pulled, a reflexive reaction, and the axe slid loose with a gluggish noise, sending him stumbling backwards. Declan was the one who stopped him tripping over his own feet and falling over.

Blue shoved Gansey behind her. Henry was searching for purchase on the wall to stand up and drag Adam away.

Another attempt was necessary, Ronan realised, a fraction of a moment before he realised the Demon was still holding the other end of the axe. It tugged sharply, but the energy of Ironbee’s gauntlet lent Ronan enough strength to wrestle it from her grip.

Blue hastily summoned a forcefield, pushing it back against the wall, but she didn’t have enough strength to contain it completely.

‘How do we kill it?’ Declan hissed, desperation and fury reducing his voice to a guttural whisper.

Ronan swallowed, ignoring the burn of a shredded throat and the taste of death. He couldn’t stop staring at the gaping hole in its chest, just below the neck. It wasn’t bleeding, just oozing black oil around the edges, but he could see the crushed bone, the shards of pale amongst mangled red and black.

The Demon was even less human than it had been before. The woman’s head lolled like a broken puppet, poised facing Ronan and Declan but eyes cast sideways, towards Cheng and Adam.

 _If it was in Adam’s head_ … Ronan clenched his teeth.

The axe was unnaturally heavy in his unarmored hand. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was dying.

Henry produced an alarmed sound. Adam’s nose was starting to bleed, and Ronan felt sick with relief and self-loathing the moment he noted that it was coloured scarlet.

Henry’s look was pleading; ’It’s _killing_ him.’

Gansey made an agonised noise. ‘What do we-’ He gestured, unclear but desperate. ‘ _How_ do we _stop_ it?’

This thing, not Piper fucking Greenmantle, this _thing_ , had killed Ronan’s parents. It had taken Niall, the centre of Ronan’s life, the axis on which the world turned, the epitome of _meaning_. It had destroyed Aurora, Ronan’s _sunlight_. And it was trying to kill the rest of his family. Declan and Matthew. Gansey. Blue and Henry. Adam.

There was seething, inhuman anger in the depths of his mind, in the deepest, darkest parts of his soul. He’d stop it. Oh, he’d stop it.

He forced his arms to work, to raise the axe again. Gansey flinched away.

Blue timed dropping the shield with incredible precision, and Ronan’s second blow went straight through the Demon’s neck. He heard the same noise, bone, wood, a few stuttering gasps of horror or shock from around him.

He hadn’t planned for complete decapitation. He hadn’t actually _planned_ at all. But when the head tipped off to one side (not fully detached but horrifically messy nonetheless), he was unprepared for the body to keep on fighting.

Blue was too stunned to react. Declan was swearing with admirable volume and specificity. What was left of the Demon flung itself forwards, and fixed absurdly strong hands around Ronan’s throat. He threw his strength into holding the axe at arms length to keep the torso (and nauseatingly severed head) at a distance, but the lack of oxygen to his already deprived brain was immediately unbearable.

Declan’s arm was across his chest, pushing him back against the wall, and one of his shoes was braced against the Demon’s stomach below the axe while he attempted to wrench its grip loose. There was black blood everywhere, dripping and oozing as if it were sentient, enveloping everything.

Ronan wasn’t sure what he was seeing through watering, blurry eyes. Not the inside of a human’s neck, that was for damn sure. It was like the inside of a tree, thin black oil oozing from between layers of dead flesh, a walking nightmare.

Declan managed to throw it off, with Blue’s help, and defensively raised the axe as Ronan sought a few painful breaths of air.

He glimpsed motion behind Gansey’s legs, and tried to wheeze an instruction to “ _go_ ”. Typical of Opal, she came closer. Closer. Closer still, close enough to grab Ronan’s elbow and pull his hand from his raw throat.

She pushed something into it. Another offering. The part of Ronan’s brain more reliant on instinct than reason recognised the weight and shape.

He tried to wave her away, and she retreated, just far enough to clutch Gansey’s outstretched hand.

Gansey’s face was still white, but he was tight-lipped, and he looked away from Declan and Blue’s hesitant struggle with the headless corpse long enough to spare Ronan a helpless nod.

Ronan glanced to Adam, but he remained unresponsive, slumped over Henry’s arm. He might have been unconscious. He might have been dead.

Ronan forced his voice to work.

‘Take its legs out.’

He wasn’t sure who complied. Declan was wielding the axe like a blood-splattered zombie survivor and Blue was using her forcefield like a riot shield. Either way, the monster (what was left of it) went down. Limbs and joints were twisting into unnatural positions, and the body twitched and writhed across the ground, splattering blood across the floorboards.

Ronan finally understood why Niall had called it the Demon.

He lifted the gun Opal had given him and emptied the rest of the clip into its head.

 

 

 

For several infuriatingly long minutes they waited to see if they’d actually killed the fucker. It had played dead once before, and nobody was willing to give it another opportunity. Declan had the axe still frozen in striking range. Ronan didn’t lower the gun. Blue’s hands were balled into fists, ominously glowing with blue light.

_Was it dead? The Demon, the monster that had taken his parents, that had haunted him for years. Was it really dead?_

Every single one of them jumped when Adam violently coughed. Henry looked like he’d had a heart attack.

Ronan snapped; ‘Fuck me, Parrish, _timing_.’

Declan didn’t relinquish the axe. There was blood on Adam’s chin, on the floor next to him, but he was awake. He wiped his face unsteadily. ‘How’d you kill it?’

His voice was gravel scraping on glass. He was talking mainly to Henry, but that might have been because his face was a shitfight and he didn’t seem fully able to actually see.

‘It’s dead?’ Declan asked suspiciously.

Adam turned his head, blinking. ‘I’m… not sure.’

Everyone, even Ronan, recoiled a few steps further back. Declan hefted the axe for another swing.

‘It’s… gone.’ Adam continued slowly. ‘I think… it could…’

‘Heal?’ Henry supplied anxiously.

’No… re-form, I think. I think it might just… re-form.’

‘What the fuck do we do?’ Ronan demanded, every word torturing his aching throat.

It wouldn’t die. The bastard thing would never die. Ronan had always imagined he could lose the fight, but not like _this_.

There was a moment of silence, but Adam shifted his gaze, so he was looking somewhere near Ronan’s ear. ‘We should burn the body.’

‘Will that work?’ Blue asked carefully.

He moved his gaze to somewhere slightly above her left temple and nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘Hey Sargent.’ Ronan showed his bloodied teeth in a grim sneer. ‘Does your cousin like to barbecue?’

 

 

 

They burned the body in the industrial district, close to where Ronan had killed Kavinsky. Using forcefields and armour they’d shovelled the corpse into one of Henry’s emptied toolboxes, and met Orla downtown. Ronan had built a bonfire out of stolen pallets and liberal quantities of accelerant, and he’d dropped the toolbox in the middle, opening the lid and tipping in enough gasoline to drown it if it had still been alive. The gun and the axe joined the heap.

Orla was the only one who could stand within sixty metres of the pile when she set fire to it. Despite hearing a heavily edited explanation of what they were actually doing, she was sufficiently suspicious to turn to Blue as she approached and remark; “You guys are in one fucked up club.”

They stood, mostly apart, morbidly silent as the fuel went up in a roaring blaze and the night sky turned red.

Gansey had been sent with Opal and Matthew on early morning “errands”. Ronan’s last glimpse of them had seen Gansey in fatigued shellshock, Matthew in bleary confusion, and Opal only sparing attention to the handful of sweets she was scoffing.

Declan drifted close enough for his grim mutter to be heard. ‘Is Parrish sure this is enough?’

Ronan shrugged, intending to convey passive aggression but achieving only passivity. Adam hadn’t really spoken since the end of the fight. He was either absorbed in thought, or expending all his mental energy monitoring the Demon. There was a square of plaster someone had stuck on the middle of his forehead which rendered him faintly more quizzical than usual, and at which Ronan avoided directly looking.

‘You did it.’ Declan continued, voice flat. ‘Are you happy now?’

Ronan drew a long, unsteady breath. He couldn’t muster the anger he felt was necessary to have a fight with Declan right now.

No, he wasn’t happy. He was broken, and killing the Demon hadn’t changed a fucking thing.

‘You should be.’

There was a half-second of utter lack of comprehension before Ronan actually turned a disbelieving gaze on his brother. He couldn’t do anything but stare.

‘I can’t believe you managed to survive, you little asshole.’

Ronan snorted.

His brother sighed. ‘Mom…’ He hesitated, then proceeded with extreme reluctance. ‘They both deserved better.’

It hurt for Declan to admit it. No, it must have hurt for Declan to _think_ about it.

‘You pain in the ass.’ He repeated, crossing his arms. He said through gritted teeth. ‘I was so fucking glad you weren’t in that church… and you had to go try and get yourself killed anyway. You never did listen to me.’

Ronan wasn’t equipped to deal with sincerity from Declan, and Declan wasn’t equipped to express any emotion other than frustration. Ronan nodded tightly, and after a stretch of awkward silence Declan moved away, towards the tidy black SUV they’d arrived in.

 

 

The bonfire burned fast, and hot enough to warp the blackened shell of the toolbox while erasing its contents.

The horizon was still bright when Blue nudged his arm with one elbow.

Ronan stirred from a distant, murky train of thought. ‘Sargent.’

‘Lynch.’ Blue had cleaned her face, thoroughly, but something haunted the corners of her eyes. ‘You almost make a decent full-time thwarter of evil.’

He smirked drily. ‘Way too much effort.’

He considered asking about Persephone, but Blue’s controlled expression was already answer enough.

‘Well, if being a complete slacker ever gets tedious…’ She was walking backwards, fragile but fierce, spreading her arms challengingly. ‘… you’ll know where to find us.’

He gave her a mock salute.

 

 

Adam sat next to him on the way back, but immediately fell asleep without a word. Declan drove, fingers tapping the steering wheel in silent unrecognisable patterns, while Orla simmered peacefully in the passenger seat.

Henry was the first to scramble out when they reached the garage, but he paused for a moment to sombrely examine the discarded pieces of his armour. Ronan waited for Adam to gingerly wander off down the corridor. Proximity was difficult, although he wasn’t certain why.

Because Adam was tired, possibly. Or because he’d seen a nightmare creature attempt to murder everyone in his dreams and then in real life. Or because that creature had been in his head, or he’d been in its head, or some horrible traumatic mixture of the two.

And Ronan couldn’t think of what to say. To Adam. To anyone.

He’d expected something different. Relief, or pride, or satisfaction. Something. Anything, that might make a difference.

Henry walked back with him, and they found Gansey and food in the kitchen. None of the psychics had returned, which somehow made it easier to pretend things weren’t so awful. Blue poured tea which Henry refused to touch, Gansey drank out of sheer awkwardness, and Ronan eschewed in favour of a bottle of gin he dug up from one of Calla’s hiding places. Adam stared vacantly into a corner, and Declan rapidly decided to take Matthew home before he got any more curious about why they’d all been awake before 3am.

Henry levelled finger guns at the room’s remaining occupants. ‘Superlative teamwork, squad. Now, if anyone is looking for me in the next, say, forty years… I’ll be busy showering forever.’

He exited the room.

 

 

Adam and Gansey talked to each other first.

Ronan hadn’t known what to expect. He hadn’t been holding his breath that Gansey would ever be able to speak to him again, but five inches into the gin and Gansey climbed up to the roof to find him playing “teach-Chainsaw-to-steal-shit” with Opal.

‘Adam’s right.’ Was the first thing he said. Squarely. Comfortably, like he’d settled the argument and Ronan would just sit back and accept it.

Because it was Gansey, after all, and Ronan literally didn’t have another approach.

‘It wasn’t human.’ Gansey explained. ‘I mean, it just wasn’t. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t…’

_Human. A person. Alive._

Ronan stared at him. Slowly, he allowed a mocking grin to supersede Gansey’s subtle assent. ‘Can you believe Greenmantle was married to that?’

Gansey gaped, then his nose twitched in an involuntarily surge of revulsion. ‘Ew, Ronan.’

He sniggered. ‘Get _that_ image out of your head.’

Gansey slumped onto the concrete beside him, and benevolently watched Opal direct Chainsaw at a neighbour’s open window. Foxway’s rooftop was a lot cleaner than Parrish’s, but still fairly sparse and unattractive. Ronan wondered absently if he could sneak up a deck chair, umbrella and a mini-fridge. Cheng could probably build him a solar-powered one.

‘Ronan.’

The single word contained everything Gansey could say. Every judgement and doubt about what Ronan had done in the past. Every anxiety and uncertainty about what he might do in the future. The memory of every companionable, and (on Gansey’s side, at least) faultlessly loyal moment they’d spent together.

Ronan didn’t say anything. _Can you forgive me?_

Gansey didn’t respond. _I always will._

They sat in silence.

 

 

Ronan went after Adam when he was too drunk to stop himself, but not too drunk to make it down the staircase intact.

He told Opal to get food. No good would come of dragging her into a semi-drunken and potentially scarring interaction between two of the only people she actually tolerated.

Adam was in the bedroom, but he wasn’t asleep. He seemed to be undecided between reading a book loosely clutched in both hands and continuing to gaze unseeingly out the window.

Ronan sprawled across the bed, liberally claiming much space already occupied by Parrish’s legs.

‘Ronan.’ Adam diverted his gaze from the window.

‘Hm.’ Ronan buried his nose in the covers, one cheek successfully pressed against the outside of Adam’s thigh. He’d changed, and showered, probably. He sure as hell didn’t smell like bonfire and near-death-experience.

‘I’m sorry.’

Ronan was drunk and Adam was warm (warmer than usual, at least). He was tired of guilt. Tired of fighting. He didn’t want Adam to be sorry, for… for anything. For whatever Adam thought he needed to be sorry for.

He delayed answering long enough to invite Adam’s fingers, tracing the curves of his spine close to the base of his skull.

‘I’m sorry.’ Adam repeated, very quietly. ‘That it didn’t bring them back.’

Ronan made a noise - one of those inadvertent things that escaped from drunk and emotionally compromised idiots - that bore some resemblance to a whimper.

He compensated by following it with a muffled, disjointed laugh.

‘I… don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.’

Adam didn’t answer.

‘Parrish.’ Ronan curled his fingers around Adam’s hips. ‘Got it wrong, didn’t I? Did it wrong.’

Adam pulled at his shoulders impatiently, and Ronan gradually shifted higher. ‘So did I. Every time.’

‘Hm?’ Ronan rested his chin on Adam’s ribs, glancing up at him curiously.

Adam smiled thinly. ‘All the things I thought out, planned… didn’t make a difference. With Noah, Dad… Viridiveste… Half the time I wasn’t even thinking for myself.’

Ronan let his head dip in understanding. He hadn’t always helped. Trying to… intervene. But keeping Adam alive was _necessary_.

Adam’s smile caught, warmed and spread. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He added. ‘We’re fighting the inevitable. And we- we didn’t lose this time.’ He huffed a laugh. ‘I really thought we were going to lose.’

Reaching for the bottle by his leg, Ronan let himself unsteadily consider the possibility that he loved Adam more than life itself.

‘Where does the war against inevitable failure take us next?’ He queried, raising himself onto his elbows.

‘Small circles around big problems.’ Adam answered, rolling his head on the pillow behind him. ‘I suppose we’d better chase Greenmantle out of his rabbit warren.’

‘Why?’ Ronan was smiling back at him, sleepily comforted by Adam’s certainty.

‘I guess it’s time.’ He took a breath. ‘With you. With the others. Not fighting for it doesn’t make sense.’

‘And if we’re not doing it right?’

He laughed. ‘I’ll wait for someone to _prove_ it.’

Grinning, Ronan took another swig from the bottle, and grimaced. ’This gin tastes fucking awful.’

Adam gently took the bottle and noted; ‘You’re drinking vodka.’

‘Oh.’ Ronan lowered his elbows, and pillowed his head comfortably on Adam’s chest. ‘Damn.’

‘Ronan?’

‘Mm?’

‘Let’s go for a drive tonight.’

‘With Opal?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Chainsaw?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Okay, Parrish. Anything you want.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what to say. I don't think there is a way to say it.   
> Except in fanfiction form, but you guys have suffered enough.  
> <3


End file.
